The Canterbury Handfasting
by Demented Amanuensis
Summary: Hermione is working for the MoM as a public prosecutor. When a defendant proposes to trade a wellkept secret for a more lenient sentence, the only one who can corroborate the story is Lucius Malfoy. But things don't exactly go as planned...
1. Chapter 1

THE CANTERBURY HANDFASTING

PROLOGUE IN AZKABAN

Azkaban was not guarded by Dementors anymore since the day Voldemort's return had been made known to the wizarding world at large, but it was still a fearsome prison. Its walls, built of huge blocks of granite and twenty feet thick, were impervious to any sound coming from outside, and the cell doors had been spelled to completely block noises from within the building. The inmates, all of them in solitary confinement, never saw a living soul. Meals appeared in their cells at regular intervals, and for the first few days they managed to keep count of them and thus maintain a sense of how long they'd been imprisoned – the cells were windowless and flooded with a faint, unchanging twilight – but after two or three weeks every single of them gave up those attempts as futile. If you'd been sentenced to spending a few years of your life in Azkaban, you needed all your energy to retain your sanity. Day-counting was a useless waste thereof.

And it was cold. So cold that after a mere couple of hours the idea of warmth turned into a tantalizing dream, never to become real again. The cells were small, only about six feet by nine; light exercise was possible, but if you overdid it you started sweating, which allowed the everlasting chill to get an even deeper and more tenacious grip on the marrow of your bones.

Lucius Malfoy had been a prisoner in Azkaban for little less than two years. Not that he was aware of how long his confinement had lasted – after resisting the mind-numbing effect of the leaden solitude, cold and silence for about a month, he had finally given in. Sometimes he was sure he'd gone crazy. Keeping his mind wrapped around what he thought might be sanity was easier when he was awake. He was able to think rationally while not asleep, to persuade himself that Narcissa would have found a way to keep herself and Draco safe, that Bellatrix would have helped because her love for her sister was still stronger than her fanaticism. His thoughts went round in circles, hungry animals on the prowl, but there was no food for them, and they had soon started gnawing at themselves.

His dreams were haunted by screams and blood and death. And by fear, by a terrible dread so strong and so much more real than any of his wakeful moments.

He had failed his mission at the Ministry of Magic. Knowing that his Dark Master was going to punish Lucius for the disappointment he had caused him, and that this time punishment meant death or torture so severe that he'd probably end up permanently at St. Mungo's, Lucius had decided that letting himself be captured was the better option.

It had been a choice made within a mere second, nothing like his usual careful planning and plotting. Lucius was unsure if, had he had more time to ponder the alternatives, he would have considered the possibility of his money, influence and excellent connections failing to secure him a prolonged sojourn at the Ministry's own holding cells. Because that was what he had banked on. Erroneously, as he had soon been forced to recognize.

He'd been transferred to Azkaban a mere five days after his capture, which had been followed by a short, devastating trial. Since the day the cell door had closed behind him, he'd been as good as buried alive.

He'd done a lot of thinking in his isolation. He wished they'd given him something to write, he'd have liked to keep a diary, to monitor his own thought processes and watch himself slowly changing his mind about convictions he'd believed to be unshakeable for his whole life. He found that he didn't care a lot anymore about pureblood supremacy. He recognized that he'd been a fool to join Voldemort. He had followed in his father's footsteps back then, without really questioning a decision that had been his only in form. He had to admit though, that in the beginning the idea of emerging from his father's almighty shadow by rising through the Death Eaters' ranks more quickly than his old man had had a certain twisted logic to it. And once he'd received his Dark Mark there really had been no way out anymore. He'd been married by then, and later on his wife had been pregnant. The consequences of even attempting to free himself would have been too terrifying.

Not so now. Lucius was sure that either Voldemort had already taken his revenge on Draco and Narcissa, or that his wife and son had been able to escape the Dark Lord's wrath. In either case, Lucius didn't have much to lose anymore. He was… free, in a way. When he came to this point in his reflections, Lucius had to stop himself from continuing to think, because the idea of being free while imprisoned between these walls surely was a sign of madness. And Lucius feared nothing more than madness, for it meant the loss of the last thing that remained his: control over himself.

When the door of his cell swung back and two men entered the narrow space, Lucius jumped up from his cot and recoiled in horror. Convinced that he'd finally lost the battle and lost his mind, he closed his eyes and hid his face in his hands.

The door closed with an almost inaudible clank, and he finally dared open his eyes. One of the men had gone, but the other was still there, looking at him with an expression of curiosity mingled with disgust. 'Malfoy,' he said. 'Long time, no see.'

'Scrim-' The syllable came out as a harsh croak, and Lucius had to clear his throat a few times before he was able to speak. 'Scrimgeour,' he said finally. 'Are we to share a cell? Has Azkaban run out of space?'

The Minister smiled a somewhat strained smile. 'Not if I can avoid it. I have come here to propose a deal, Malfoy. Sit down.'

Eyebrows rising, Lucius silently went to sit on the cot.

'I have been Minister for Magic for almost as long as you've been here, Malfoy.'

'Ah. How very interesting. And how long would that be?' Obviously he had not succeeded in keeping his face as expressionless as he'd intended, Lucius thought, because Scrimgeour's face was lit by an ugly smile.

'Difficult to keep track of time in here, is it, Malfoy?'

'I thought you had come to propose a deal, Minister. It is never wise to anger one's counterpart in such cases.'

'That,' Scrimgeour said, 'strongly depends on what one has to offer.' He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall opposite Lucius. 'Well, aren't you curious to hear what I have come to offer you?'

'I trust you shall be telling me in your own time. Considering that you went to the trouble of coming here, I rather suspect that whatever you think I may be able to offer you is of significant interest to you.' Lucius crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, mimicking Scrimgeour's position, although he didn't like having to look up at the Minister.

'Still fond of playing cat and mouse, are you?

'The cat's part does suit me rather well, yes.'

'Even that of a trapped cat with no claws?'

Lucius inspected his fingernails. They were long, dirty and broken. 'Don't forget the teeth. And I do have a few lives left.'

'All of which you'll spend in Azkaban, unless you agree to the deal.'

'To continue with the same, though rather trite metaphor: You don't seriously expect me to agree before you have let the cat out of the bag, do you?'

Scrimgeour snorted. 'Am I wrong in assuming that your vault at Gringott's contains a rather negligible part of your fortune?'

'One hundred and fifty thousand galleons are hardly a sum a… public employee could call negligible.'

'Certainly not. But I presume that substantial sum isn't all you have got.'

Lucius merely shrugged.

'How much would your freedom be worth to you?'

'That depends on how you define freedom. Living in poverty and under house arrest certainly doesn't qualify. It would be better than rotting in this cell, mind you, but the price I'd be ready to pay would scarcely be worth mentioning.'

'So…' Scrimgeour pushed himself off the wall and began to pace the narrow space. 'What would you be ready to pay a substantial sum for?'

The thrill of conducting this negotiation by far outweighed Lucius's desire for freedom. A freedom that was illusory at best, he was sure. 'Oh, I don't know, really. I would have to give the matter some careful thought.' He crossed his legs and smiled up at the Minister.

'I don't have time to play games, Malfoy. Name the price for your freedom.'

'Your definition of the term, if you please, Minister.'

Scrimgeour's shoulders sagged. He was standing with his back towards Lucius. 'Destruction of all the ministry files concerning you, and the possibility to prove your loyalties during the imminent battle against He Who Must Not Be Named.'

'Is your situation that desperate?'

The Minister turned slowly to face his opponent. 'I have to leave the country as soon as possible. Whoever wins is sure to turn against me. Although I am as good as certain that Potter is going to win.'

'Thanks for the hint,' Lucius said dryly. 'Very useful information indeed, since you're offering me the possibility to prove my, er, loyalties. It would be a little embarrassing, wouldn't it, to choose the wrong side. By the way, how exactly do you mean to provide me with that possibility?'

'A portkey, to be activated at my command, which will be keyed to Potter and his friends.'

'At your command? You don't seem to be on such excellent terms with the Order of the Phoenix to know when they'll be preparing for battle.'

'I have my spies, Malfoy.'

Lucius nodded slowly. 'Nymphadora?'

'Whoever. Well, do you accept the deal?'

'How much do you want?'

'Three hundred thousand galleons, to be transferred to an account of my choice.'

It was a large sum, but one he could afford to lose if it bought his freedom. 'How am I to know you kept your part of the deal?'

'A very reasonable question, Malfoy.' Scrimgeour dug in his pockets and produced a tiny wad of parchment. 'Restoreo!' The wad grew into an impressive stack of files. 'Sign the transfer order, and I'll burn them here, before your eyes.'

'You could have made copies. I'm no fool, Scrimgeour.'

With an impatient shake of his head, the Minister again pointed his wand at the files. 'Revelo duplico!' Nothing happened. 'Satisfied?'

Lucius shrugged. 'It's not as if I'd mind the loss of my money while in here. I therefore choose to believe you. What about the portkey?'

'I will leave it with you once you sign this magical contract.' Scrimgeour pulled a roll of parchment and a second wand from his sleeve. 'Yours, by any chance?'

Having trouble to suppress a moan of longing, Lucius merely nodded.

'It will be activated, both as a portkey and as a functioning wand, at my command. Well?'

Lucius bowed his head. 'I agree to the deal.'

NEWS FROM THE WIZARDING WORLD

St. Mungo's, 5 May 1998

Dear mum and dad,

I'm still a bit weak and can't write for too long, but I just wanted you to know that it's over, we've won and I'm alive and almost well. Please don't fret, I'm going to write more tomorrow or the day after.

Kisses and hugs

Hermione

ooo

St. Mungo's, 7 May 1998

Dear mum and dad,

I was sure you'd worry yourselves to death in spite of my short letter, so I sent Arthur. I hope he didn't ask too many questions about the DVD, stereo etc., although maybe the hairdryer interested him even more. Anyway, I wanted you to hear from him in person that the battle had gone well for our side.

Maybe you won't believe me, but when we were out there on the grounds and finally facing the enemy, I stopped being afraid. It was better than the constant state of alert we had been under for almost a year. I knew I was able to fight Death Eaters, because I'd already done it once, and that had been Voldemort's elite. There were more of them during the battle, but he'd already lost some of the most dangerous ones, and I had the feeling that many of those fighting us weren't all that keen. Not that it was easy, but everybody on our side was so determined to fight and win. And we did.

I know I can't lie to you, and I would feel compelled to tell you the truth sooner or later, and so I prefer to tell you right now: it's something of a miracle that I'm still alive. The battle had only just started, and I'd stunned and bound one of the Death Eaters but obviously forgotten that there was nobody there to guard my back. I don't remember anymore what made me turn round (maybe I heard some tiny noise), but when I did, there was Rodolphus Lestrange (he was wearing a mask of course, but we found out later), raising his wand. It was such a strange feeling, knowing that I'd be dead within a few seconds. I knew he would cast the curse if I so much as tried to point my wand at him. Ron was lying on the ground (he'd been stunned previously by the one I'd just finished) and Harry was fighting another Death Eater, so he couldn't come to my rescue.

And then, out of thin air, there suddenly was Lucius Malfoy. I clearly remember thinking 'How on earth did he get out of Azkaban?' and I almost laughed, because it was all so stupid and senseless. I was as good as dead anyway, so why did he waste his time on me? And then he killed Lestrange, who seemed to be as surprised as I was and didn't react fast enough. Plus, he obviously had no idea that Malfoy was on our side.

Malfoy stayed with Harry, Ron and me, and (although I hate to admit it) without him and Professor Snape we would have had a much harder time winning the battle. They are both in custody at the Ministry right now, the trial will take place next week, and I've already received a letter from the Ministry asking me to testify.

Speaking of the Ministry (you really ought to subscribe to the Daily Prophet, by the way, keeping up with our news would be so much easier): Minister Scrimgeour has obviously left the country, and nobody knows his whereabouts. I don't know what people celebrated more: Voldemort being gone for good, or Scrimgeour having left. Anyway, we'll have a new Minister soon, and I do hope he or she will do a better job than Scrimgeour or Fudge.

I'll write again soon. Please keep your fingers crossed for McGonagall to allow us to take our N.E.W.T.s this year, if maybe a bit later than usual. I've been studying so much, I'd hate to wait another year when there's so much I could be doing already.

Kisses and hugs

Hermione

ooo

Hogwarts, 20 May 1998

Dear mum and dad,

Thanks for sending Crookshanks. He was terribly grumpy (you know how much he hates having to stay in the basket) but Dobby brought him some lovely fish and a bit of cream, and now he's sitting on my desk, purring and trying to catch the quill (Crookshanks, not Dobby).

The trial took place the day before yesterday. It was a very emotional affair, because Dumbledore had apparently left McGonagall a pensieve (you remember, I told you about it, it's a magical basin to keep memories in) together with some instructions, and he'd spelled it to produce a three-dimensional image of him testifying that Professor Snape was innocent. The Order members had known that of course since March, but for the others it was a surprise, and almost everybody in the audience started crying when they saw that image, because it looked so very real. I had to fake a few tears, because Harry would never have forgiven me otherwise. I wonder how long it will take him to understand to which degree the old man used and manipulated him. But I suppose that even someone as brave as Harry can only take so much at a time, and what with Sirius dead (he still hasn't got over it) and having to commit a murder in order to save us all (I copied heaps of legal texts for him in order to make him understand it was self defence, but he didn't even want to look at them) I guess he has enough on his plate. Realizing that he has been Dumbledore's puppet till the last moment would probably drive him mad, and so it's all for the best.

I had to testify in Malfoy's favour and of course I said what my conscience dictated me to say – the man looks horrible, even though he probably tried his best to look his old self. He pleaded that he'd already spent two years in Azkaban for the break-in at the Ministry, during which he'd been the only one not to attack or harm any of us (which is true, unfortunately) and that he'd changed sides – since he'd been in prison, nobody was able to prove that he had done so at the last minute – and helped us win the battle. That was also true, and I had to confirm it. You ought to have seen Ron's face, I thought he'd murder me. I never liked Malfoy, but I have to say I pitied him when I saw him like that. Arthur confirmed what I'd already suspected, i.e. that Azkaban prisoners are totally cut off from the world outside, so just imagine what it must have been like to be set free (though nobody seemed to know exactly how and why) and find out that his wife had been killed by Voldemort himself. I felt sorry for him when he approached Draco after the trial (Draco had come to get Professor Snape) and Draco would have hexed him, if it hadn't been for Professor Snape who held him back.

There are rumours that Professor McGonagall is to become the next Minister for Magic. I wish it was true, because I just know she'd do a really good job. With her as Minister, I might rethink my career plans. I wouldn't have dreamed of working for the Ministry under Fudge or Scrimgeour, but I'm sure McGonagall would start a lot of reforms, and I'd like to be a part of that.

Oh, I almost forgot something important: We're to receive our Orders of Merlin on 30 May (the new Minister's first official act, and a perfect piece of political tactics, I wonder who came up with the idea, hopefully not Pompous Percy) and you'll get your invitations by owl. I suggest that you dress as you would for a similar Muggle ceremony, that ought to be ok.

Oh, and something else: We're allowed to sit our N.E.W.T.s in August, isn't that wonderful?

See you next weekend at the ceremony!

Kisses and hugs

Hermione


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 1 – FIVE YEARS LATER

Closing the door of their small flat in one of the lanes near Diagon Alley with a well-aimed kick, Hermione called, 'Ron, are you home already?'

'Yes!' That was all the answer she got. If Ron reacted that way he was angry, and Hermione didn't think she could bear another of his increasingly frequent fits of bad temper. She'd decided that tonight was the night – another row, and she'd finally end the relationship. A flick of her wand sent the brown paper bags full of groceries to precede her towards the kitchen, where she prepared a cup of tea while spelling her purchases to store themselves in the various cupboards.

With the steaming cup in one hand and the Daily Prophet in the other, she went into the living room, where Ron was sprawled on the couch, reading a Quidditch magazine. 'Hi,' she said, 'How was your day?'

Ron glared at her over his magazine. 'You were there, you ought to know.'

'I beg your pardon?' Hermione was momentarily unsure she'd understood him correctly. 'I was at work all day long, so how would I know-'

'Exactly,' he spat, throwing the magazine into a corner, where Crookshanks immediately pounced on it, attracted by the players whizzing across the page. 'You were there, presenting that... that _report_ together with McGonagall and your cronies!'

'If you are talking about your sister, Luna and Neville, we are the Minister's Counsels, not somebody's cronies,' Hermione said coldly.

'Whatever.' Ron made a disdainful gesture. 'I talked to mum and dad as soon as I saw the evening edition of the Prophet, and they're beside themselves with anger. How could you, Hermione, after all we've lost?'

Hermione sighed and slumped back into her chair. The cup of tea remained on the table, untouched. 'Why do we have to discuss this again and again, Ron? I know how much you loved Bill, but so did Ginny, and even she understood that revenge is not the way to rebuild a society after so many years of hatred and enmity.'

'As did you and Neville and Luna, bla, bla, bla! I know your arguments, Hermione, and I really don't want to listen to them anymore!'

'But if you always say the same,' Hermione countered angrily, 'what am I supposed to do? Agree with you? Repeating nonsense doesn't make it less stupid, you know?'

'I'm mourning the death of my brother and you have the nerve to call that nonsense?' Ron shouted.

As she always did when Ron started shouting at her, Hermione tried to remain calm. 'I wasn't talking about your feelings being nonsense. But your and your family's eternal cries for revenge are definitely nonsense, Ron. It's immature, and it's useless. Bill won't come back, even if we sentence people whose guilt or innocence we are scarcely able to prove to ten years in Azkaban. Besides I'm sure that the confiscation of their fortunes and having to do community work hurts them much more, but we can issue such verdicts only on those few whose allegiance to Voldemort can be proved beyond a doubt.'

'You just have to look at them!' Ron raged on. 'Look at Wilberforce! Look at that Chandler woman! They're guilty as hell, why spare them?'

'Condemning people because of their looks is a dangerous thing, Ron. If we wanted that, we wouldn't have needed Minerva's reform of the legal system, and all my studying and work would have been for nothing. As would Ginny's, Neville's and Luna's! But the people wanted it-'

'Don't be ridiculous!' Ron interrupted her with a sneer. 'The people didn't give a shit about that reform!'

Hermione sat up straight. 'There was a referendum, in case you've forgotten, Mr Ronald Weasley! With an overwhelming majority of eighty percent voting in favour of the legal reform! You call that nothing? And just in case you want to argue against that, may I remind you that ninety-five percent of British wizards and witches over seventeen participated!'

'I know! So did I! And I fucking voted against it!'

'Yes, well, so what!' Unable to keep her calm in the face of such stubborn ignorance, Hermione slammed the table with her fist. 'That's what democracy means! The majority decides! Is that so bloody difficult to understand? Your grief for your dead brother is one thing, and rebuilding the country is another, and nobody wants to contest your right to mourn Bill, for heaven's sake! But we can't go on hating and dividing and mistrusting. A society has to be built on the principles of law, not a few people's emotions!'

Ron watched her out of narrowed eyes. 'Mum's right,' he said finally. 'All that studying at Muggle universities, and all that making up laws together with your oh-so-clever friends must have addled your brains.'

Hermione's face went white. She had to ball her hands into fists to stop them from trembling with rage. 'So that's what your mother has to say on my behalf?'

'Yes, and she's right. It all started when you testified in Malfoy's favour at that trial, instead of-'

The still full teacup missed Ron's head by a mere inch and shattered against the wall. 'The man saved my bloody life! Not to mention yours! You would've been easy prey for Lestrange, lying on the ground still half-stunned! That's not something you can just overlook! He _did_ save me, he _did_ help us kill that monster, and he fucking hasn't done anything wrong since then!'

'Ha!' Ron said, tapping his index against his forehead. 'Every idiot would be able to see that he's only behaving because McGonagall clipped his wings. He doesn't have any political connections anymore – you'd be astonished what he'd do if he was still powerful!'

'That's what you think, Ron! Maybe you're even right, but that's not the bloody point! The point is that we now have laws that are very clear on a man being innocent until proven guilty! That goes for Malfoy as well as Wilberforce, Chandler and all the others. But that's not what you want to hear, is it? You want me to agree with you like a good little woman, you want me to share your stupid hatred and all the prejudice you have never tried to get rid of. You want somebody like your mother, who hasn't had an independent thought since the day she married your father.' Hermione got up and marched over to her boyfriend, to loom over him with her balled fists resting on her hips. 'Tell you what, Ron. This was the final straw. I've had enough of your rants and your bigotry and your Mum Says. I've endured almost five years of it, and I've argued with you again and again, because I thought that one day you would understand. Not just the legal reform, but me. But you don't, and I can't stand it anymore. I can't stand you anymore. Take your things, now, and get the fuck out of my flat. Go back to your mum, where you'll be cosseted and patted on the head, and where everybody will love to listen to your stupid, useless opinions! I'll be in the kitchen, you have fifteen minutes!'

She grabbed Crookshanks who had been watching the exchange with interest, and slammed the kitchen door shut behind her.

OOOOO

Hermione looked up from the parchment she was studying when a cup of coffee came to a sloshing halt next to her right hand. 'Morning, Ginny,' she said and smiled. 'Bit late today, aren't you?'

'Not really.' Ginny sank into the chair at the desk opposite Hermione's, where she had deposited a large stack of files, and took a deep gulp from her coffee cup. 'I spent the last thirty minutes at McG's office.'

'Oh dear.' Hermione shook her head sympathetically. 'But I'm sure she'll understand that the Beaufrey case-'

'No, no,' Ginny interrupted her. 'There aren't any problems with the Beaufrey case. It was about...' She hesitated, regarding Hermione over the rim of her cup. 'It was about mum,' she finally said.

'Your... mum?' What Ron had told her the night before about his mother's opinions concerning her career choices made Hermione wish, just for a moment, that the woman really had committed some serious offence which would land her in Azkaban for at least six months.

'Mum, yes. She didn't take...' Ginny sipped at her coffee again. 'That must have been quite a scene between you and Ron last night,' she said, seemingly switching topics.

'He's had that coming for months,' Hermione said darkly. 'Don't tell me you're surprised. But didn't you mean to tell me something about your mother?'

Ginny snorted. 'I was starting to, as a matter of fact. When Ron arrived at the Burrow, all flustered indignation, and told her-'

'No! She didn't call-'

'Oh yes, she did. She tried you first of course, but you had blocked the connection, which made her even more furious, and then Ron said something about it all being McG's fault anyway, and... Well, you can imagine.'

'I'm so sorry, Gin! Really! But I couldn't have gone on living with him even for one more day. I had no idea your mother was going to – McG didn't fire you, did she?' Hermione interrupted herself, when she remembered that Ginny had just been to see the Minister.

'No, fortunately she has more common sense than that. She was very understanding and told me she wasn't going to hold my mother's bigotry against me.'

Relieved, Hermione took a first sip of her own coffee. 'How bad was it? Your mum, I mean.'

'To tell you the truth, I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. It was hilarious, in a way, because the whole situation was so absurd. Mum screaming and ranting at McG, and McG completely calm and polite till the very end... But it's very difficult to acknowledge that your own parents are total morons, even if you've known that for quite some time.'

'I can imagine. Life at the Burrow isn't going to become any easier for you, I suppose.'

'Erm...' Ginny leaned forward, both elbows on her desk, and gave Hermione a half-smile. 'I probably shouldn't ask you right now, but could I move in with you until I find a place of my own?'

She seemed quite unsure of the reaction she was going to get, but Hermione beamed at her. 'You're finally moving out? Congratulations, Gin! My place is your place, stay as long as you want!'

'Really? It's only going to be a few weeks, because I really want something of my own. Not anywhere near Ottery St. Catchpole, but I'd like to live somewhere in the countryside...' She sighed and looked dreamily out of the window. 'A small cottage maybe, with a garden where I can grow herbs and flowers, and I'll be able to invite my friends for dinner...'

'Not to mention that you can take home any boyfriend you want, and he won't be hexed or shown wedding pictures.'

Ginny grinned broadly. 'That too. Thanks, Hermione. And congratulations as well, since you finally broke up with Ron.'

'No hard feelings?'

'You must be joking. I know what you had to go through – Ron only repeated what mum had to say. You were being very discreet, but I pretty much got the picture, I think.'

'I didn't mean to exclude you, honestly, I merely didn't want to give you more trouble than you already had. But since that's a thing of the past now, I propose that we celebrate our freedom tonight, with lots of drinking and gossiping.'

'Hear, hear.' Ginny grinned. 'And isn't it a lucky coincidence that today is Friday? Which reminds me...' She levitated the top half off he stack of files she'd brought and directed them to land on Hermione's desk. 'They've arrested Lazenby, and McG wants you on the case.'

'Lazenby?' Hermione frowned. 'Not Lazenby from Mysteries?'

'The very same. It seems that he took advantage of being an Unspeakable to put a bit of money in his own pocket.'

'He used to be one of Scrimgeour's cronies, right?'

'Yep. He was an Auror first, and when Scrimgeour became Minister, he transferred him to Mysteries. Not a bad move, considering the old enmity between Mysteries and Law Enforcement. Scrimgeour didn't have a lot of friends among the Unspeakables.'

Hermione shook her head. 'You know, Ginny, I wouldn't be half as good without all that insider gossip you got from your father.'

'Don't mention it. I'd never have got the McNairs without your knowledge of Muggle investment banking. We're just a good team.'

They toasted each other with coffee, and then started working on their respective files.

ooo

After a very thorough celebration on Friday evening, both women had woken up rather late on Saturday. The weekend had been spent in a leisurely fashion between reading case files and making Ginny at home in the flat Hermione had been sharing with Ron. They'd found out that Hermione was an early riser who didn't mind making breakfast for two, whereas Ginny readily took over the task of cleaning up behind them in the evening, when Hermione preferred going straight to bed, leaving a mess the sight of which made her grumpy in the morning.

After a short conference in the morning with McGonagall, Hermione made her way down to the cell block where Gerald Lazenby was currently being held in custody. It was going to be a clear-cut, neat case – the evidence against the wizard was so overwhelming that no lawyer, no matter how astute or determined, was likely to get him less than five years in Azkaban.

Much to Hermione's surprise, Lazenby was waiting for her alone, without his lawyer. She'd seen the man in passing a few times but never spoken to him. He was a short, stocky man of about seventy, with close-cropped grey hair and gold-rimmed glasses. The kind of person, Hermione thought, that was easily overlooked and difficult to remember. Ideal for an Auror or Unspeakable.

'Good morning, Mr Lazenby.' She sat down opposite him and put a roll of parchment and a dictoquill on the small table. 'I suppose your lawyer will be arriving shortly?'

Lazenby shook his head. 'No lawyer, not today.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I want to strike a deal, but my lawyer doesn't need to know about it, at least not yet.'

'You are of course aware that this is very unusual?'

Lazenby shrugged. 'I don't care if it's unusual. Look' – he leaned forward and tried to catch Hermione's eye – 'I know the charges being laid against me, I know about the evidence, I'm not going to deny anything. But I don't want to spend ten years in Azkaban. Therefore I'm proposing a deal.'

'I see.' Hermione spelled parchment and quill back into her briefcase. 'Well let's hear what you have to tell me, then. I suppose I don't need to mention that you're still bound to secrecy as far as your work for the Department of Mysteries is concerned?'

'Of course.' He made an impatient gesture. 'What I'm going to tell you is unrelated to my work at Mysteries. It's about something I had to do for Scrimgeour personally, a few days before he disappeared.'

Now he did have Hermione's full attention, although she was careful to dissimulate it. 'All right. Tell me whatever it is you mean to tell me, and we'll see.'

Lazenby nodded and, after a short pause, said, 'You know, of course, that Scrimgeour vanished on 5 May 1998.'

'I don't think I'll ever forget that date,' Hermione said dryly. 'if for different reasons than Scrimgeour's disappearance. Consider me informed about the historical details, Mr Lazenby, as far as they're publicly known.'

'Very well. So I'm going to tell you, without further ado, that Scrimgeour called me to his office in the late evening of 25 March 1998. He gave me a wand and asked me to turn it into a portkey. That would've been easy, he could have done it himself. But he wanted more.' He stopped and looked at her expectantly.

'There's no need for dramatic pauses, Mr Lazenby.'

The prisoner gave her a lopsided smile and continued, 'It was a deactivated wand. He wanted it to be reactivated at the same moment the portkey function was activated, and he needed to activate that function himself. But he told me that the portkey wouldn't be anywhere near him when he activated it.'

'Tricky bit of magic,' Hermione said, smiling despite herself.

'Very tricky indeed,' Lazenby agreed. 'But I managed in the end. As you can probably imagine, I was also quite curious for whom the portkey was meant, because it obviously wasn't for Scrimgeour himself. So I made a few discreet inquiries.' He grinned at Hermione. 'Want to guess?'

'Not really.'

'Pity,' he said, frowning. 'It would have been fun – there's pretty little amusement to be had down here, you know?'

'You ought to have thought of that before, Mr Lazenby. Besides I'm not here to cheer you up or play games with you, so kindly continue with your story.'

'It's almost finished. The wand belonged to none other than Lucius Malfoy.'

ooo

Hermione left Ginny a note, informing her friend that she'd probably be out of office for the whole rest of the day, for she had to do some important research. It wasn't quite the truth, although it wasn't a lie either. What seemed most vital to Hermione right now was to order her thoughts and develop a strategy. That wasn't easy at the office, where concentration became possible only after 4p.m. when no more Floo calls came through and memos stopped zooming in and out the door.

So Hermione left the Ministry by way of the Floo connection leading to the Leaky Cauldron, and after a brief walk to Covent Garden found herself a free table outside a Muggle café. She always carried pen and paper in addition to her magical writing equipment, and when she'd been served her coffee and mineral water, she took out a block and a biro and started jotting down notes.

What Lazenby had told her made sense. If Malfoy had indeed been given a portkey-wand to be activated by the then-Minister, she had finally found an explanation for his otherwise mysterious appearance on the battlefield. She also remembered the trial that had taken place shortly after the battle, and the Wizengamot's rather strange reticence concerning Malfoy's prior offences and, indeed, his release from Azkaban. Like most of the others, Hermione had been convinced at the time that enough money had changed hands to buy Malfoy's freedom and deflect the court's attention from his former trials. Knowing what she knew now, however, made her strongly suspect that not only had Malfoy paid a rather larger bribe than she'd believed, but that Scrimgeour had played an important part in the subsequent trial, although he'd already left at that time for whereabouts unknown.

So the question was: What had the Minister done, and how had he done it? That he'd given Malfoy his freedom for a hefty sum of money seemed quite clear. But how had he been able to influence the trial?

Imperius was one of the possibilities Hermione wrote down on her block. Obliviate was another, and then there was of course the possibility of Scrimgeour having put Confundus or some similar charm on Malfoy's files. She decided to start by looking at the files first. If she got lucky, all the better. If she didn't, she'd have to obtain McGonagall's permission to interview whoever had been involved in the trial.

Gnawing the end of her biro – it was still a bad habit, but Hermione had successfully switched from the worse one of biting her lip or her nails to quill- or pen-chewing – she thought about the steps she ought to take after her research at the ministry. Lazenby was a common criminal, who had been too greedy for his own good. Now he was dreading the consequences of his actions and therefore determined to get a milder verdict than he deserved. That in itself wouldn't be reason enough to carry her investigation any further if she didn't find anything in the files. Five years had passed since the last battle and the trial, and it would be very difficult now to trace any spell or curse Scrimgeour might have put on anybody such a long time ago. Talking to the people who'd been involved back then was going to be a delicate affair with no real chance of success.

She sighed. It would have to be either the files or nothing.

But Hermione had a very inquisitive mind, which wasn't easily put off a problem. Regardless of Lazenby obtaining his goal or not, the story he'd told her was intriguing. And it had a ring of truth to it.

The biro splintered under a particularly savage attack of her teeth, and Hermione spent a few seconds discreetly spitting pieces of plastic into a paper tissue. Shaking her head at her own stubbornness, she finally admitted to herself that there was far more to her fascination with Lazenby's story: if she was able to verify it, she might get a chance to find out more about Scrimgeour's disappearance. She even might, if she was very lucky, be able to discover his whereabouts. And that had been her secret ambition for almost five years.

Hermione ordered another coffee and silently confessed to herself that she'd never quite got over the disappointment of Harry reaping all the glory after he'd vanquished Voldemort. He'd been the only one to get an Order of Merlin, First Class, all the others had to be content with Second or Third, no matter how hard they'd been working behind the scenes or in how much danger they'd been. But the Wizengamot had decided that way, and the decision was final.

Since that day Hermione had been dreaming of being publicly recognized for something she'd achieved, and the mystery of the Minister's disappearance had become the focus of those dreams somewhere along the road. It wasn't a permanent obsession, but a recurring one, and the fresh clue she'd just received had rekindled the flames.

So what was she to do if research at the ministry didn't yield any result? She'd have to ask Malfoy, and that wasn't something she particularly liked to do.

OOOOO

Ginny had gone out with some boyfriend or other, and that suited Hermione just perfectly. Not that she minded her friend's company, on the contrary, but what she had just found, or rather not found, at the ministry's archives necessitated some serious thinking.

Crookshanks was sitting on her stomach, purring loudly while she scratched his back and looked up at the ceiling.

It was one thing, she pondered, to find that parts of a file had gone missing. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what she'd been expecting. But it was something else entirely to discover that a complete file, built up over the course of some twenty-five years, was gone. Of course entire files got lost, such things happened every day at the ministry. But there were tracing spells, developed for exactly that eventuality. And even if a whole file disappeared, its place on the shelf in the ministry's archive was still there and clearly marked.

At first Hermione had been sure that some variation of the Confundus charm had been employed to mask the empty space between Malfoy, Abraxas and Mancuso, Zephyrinius. When all her revealing spells and counter charms had borne no result, Hermione had to admit that there simply was no space between the two names. She knew of at least three trials against Lucius Malfoy, which meant there had to be both a space on the shelf and a rather voluminous stack of parchment.

In a way, this result of her search was far more satisfying than the mere discovery of some missing pages. Such occurrences were far too easy to explain. This, however, was impossible to explain other than by somebody's deliberate intervention. If Lazenby had done it on Scrimgeour's behest, he would probably have told her so. But he hadn't, and although Hermione intended to ask him anyway, she was pretty sure of the answer he'd give her. Considering that the repeated interrogation of select ministry employees under Veritaserum had shown clearly that nobody had the slightest idea as to what Scrimgeour had been up to, Hermione was inclined to think that the removal of the Malfoy files had been Scrimgeour's own doing. She had to admit the possibility of another secret contact like Lazenby, however, but attempting to identify him or her would be like the proverbial search for the needle in the haystack. Besides, if the Minister hadn't been able to turn Malfoy's wand into a portkey according to his own wishes, he'd certainly been more than capable of removing the files. So why would he have taken the risk of involving yet another person?

With a sigh Hermione removed Crookshanks from her stomach and rose from the couch. If she had to ask Malfoy, she was determined to do so as soon as possible. She'd write him a letter asking for an appointment on Thursday or Friday, and use the next three days to gather information on the elusive wizard that was Lucius Malfoy.

OOOOO

Rita Skeeter and Hermione Granger had buried the axe a long time ago, during Hermione's fifth year at Hogwarts. Once Hermione had started working for the ministry as one of the Minister's newly appointed Counsels, the two women had even established a kind of cautiously friendly cooperation. They exchanged carefully selected bits of information, and both their careers benefited greatly from this semi-official arrangement.

Hermione's owl to Malfoy had been despatched on Tuesday and returned only two hours later with a letter inviting her to Malfoy Manor for a late breakfast on Friday morning. She'd immediately sent off another two letters, one of which contained a polite request for Rita to join her for dinner on Wednesday, at La Torre del Mago.

'Well,' Skeeter said when the waiter had cleared away their plates after starters, 'thanks for the information on the Beaufrey case. Anything I can offer you in return?'

'Yes.' Hermione took an appreciative sip of her wine. 'It's rather personal though, and I'd really like it to remain between the two of us.'

Skeeter eyed her through her pink-framed glasses. 'Between the two of us, eh? And there I was hoping for an exclusive on your and Weasley's break-up.'

'I doubt anybody would be interested, but I'm certainly not going to prevent you from writing whatever you want on that subject. Don't look at me like that, I really couldn't care less.' The main course arrived, and both women spent a few seconds raptly inhaling the fumes rising from their plates. 'To answer your question,' Hermione said, 'I need a bit of information – I'd be able to research it myself, but I need it soon and don't have much time to waste. So I thought I'd rather ask you. And of course I wouldn't mind learning some less known facts, provided there are any.'

'Sounds intriguing,' Skeeter remarked between a bite of fish and a sip of white wine. 'Do you find single life so boring?'

'That was not what I meant by "personal", Rita. As you'll see when I tell you who all this is about.'

'Women have been known to be interested in women that way,' Skeeter said with a smirk. 'You certainly wouldn't be the first one.'

'Oh, but it's a man I need information about. Anyway, I can assure you I'm not interested in him "that way", so kindly wipe that smile off your face. It's a kind of, well, let's call it a personal quest. And I need you to tell me everything you know about Lucius Malfoy.'

Hermione certainly hadn't intended to drop a bombshell, but Skeeter looked as if she had. 'And you're sure you don't mean to get your hands on that lovely blond hair, not to mention the rest of him?' she said when she'd finished spelling the wine off her fuchsia robes.

'Absolutely sure. Sorry to disappoint, of course, but he really isn't my type.'

'Are you joking? All that money? The house?'

'I'm sufficiently well off, so I don't need a man with money. Which would leave going after him merely for his looks, and I assure you once again that I'm not interested.'

Skeeter gave her a wicked grin. 'He saved your life, though. That's supposed to create a special bond... Okay, okay,' she said, seeing Hermione's eyes narrowing. 'You're not interested, I'll take your word for it. So, what would you like me to tell you about Luscious Lucius?'

'Anything, really. What does he do, who are his friends, things like that.'

Spearing a piece of fennel, Skeeter frowned. 'You know,' she finally said, 'there really isn't much to tell. If we're speaking of the present, of course. Back in Lucius's heyday I could have spent a whole week telling you about him, but he's become very quiet. A big reception once a year at the Manor, to celebrate You Know Who's downfall, a few charity events, that's all. No more political power or intrigue, McGonagall has seen to that. He's bought the Wimbourne Wasps a few weeks ago, did you know?'

Hermione nodded. She and Ron had had one of their worst rows when the news had appeared on the Daily Prophet.

'Witch Weekly tried to cook up a story about Malfoy and one of the Wasps' chasers, but as she got married a week after he'd bought the team, they didn't bring it. They'd have loved to, of course, especially since Malfoy hasn't been seen in female company for at least two years.' She winked at Hermione. 'Still not interested?'

'I don't think so.' Hermione signalled to the waiter to bring another bottle of wine. 'But it's strange, isn't it? He used to be such a flamboyant personality, one can hardly believe that he should be leading such a sedate life now.'

'Oh, it's not that strange. I mean, everybody knew that he wasn't madly in love with Narcissa – it had been an arranged marriage after all, and he cheated on her often enough, but she was the mother of his heir, and she was murdered in such a gruesome way... Besides, Draco never forgave him. That's enough to drive a man into solitude, I guess.'

'Maybe.' Hermione swirled the stem of her wineglass between her thumb and index finger. 'It's just that he's always struck me as terribly ambitious... That's a rather fundamental character trait, nothing one lets go of so easily.'

'And who should know better than you,' Skeeter said, grinning.

OOOOO

The second owl Hermione had sent off after receiving Malfoy's response had gone to Potente Potions Ltd., the company Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy had set up after the war. Draco had inherited enough money from his mother to be independent of his father, even if he'd decided that he didn't want to work at all. He hadn't though, but instead had started a potions manufacture together with his mentor, and the two men certainly couldn't complain about lack of success

Apart from being the company's creative brain, Snape was also working as an independent consultant whose skills were occasionally required by the ministry. Hermione had worked with him on a couple of cases and learned to truly appreciate the man's exactitude, sharp mind and vast knowledge. Snape, on the other hand, had reluctantly admitted that Hermione's new function as a public prosecutor was well fitted to her inquisitive mind and unquenchable curiosity.

Given their professional relationship, Hermione had no compunctions about asking Snape a few questions concerning Lucius Malfoy. She wasn't so sure about asking Draco, but determined to try.

Thursday morning saw her standing at the window of Snape's office, drinking coffee and waiting for the Potions Master whose secretary had told her that he was going to be five minutes late. Hermione looked down at the expanse of green that was Hyde Park and wondered, as she did every time she came to Snape's office, how the man had ever been able to dwell in Hogwarts' dungeons when he so obviously preferred light, airy spaces. Not to mention dry ones, which didn't scream rheumatism at you from every damp corner.

'Good day, Miss Granger. Sorry to have kept you waiting.'

Hermione turned to greet her former professor. 'Thank you for receiving me. As I told you in my letter, this isn't ministry business but private. Or' – she sat down on the armchair he indicated – 'somewhere between the two.'

'You were very clear on the subject, Miss Granger.' Snape took a seat opposite her, leaned back and crossed his legs. 'Well then, how may I be of help?'

Hermione had to hide a smile – sometimes she still had difficulties adjusting to the fact that the co-owner of Potente Potions Ltd. was the same person as Hogwarts' eternally dour Potions teacher. He still wore black, and he still didn't smile more than maybe once a year, but his arrogance had been replaced by confidence, he was smooth instead of slippery, and most of all he was relaxed. It remained to be seen, however, if he was going to remain thus once she'd asked her question. 'I'd like you to tell me about Lucius Malfoy,' she said.

He sneered, which made him look more like the ill-tempered bat of the dungeons he'd once been. 'Barely rid of Weasley, and already chasing Malfoy? I'm impressed.'

Hermione let out a sigh of exasperation. 'Why does everybody think I want to set my cap at him?'

'Everybody?' A black brow shot up.

'Well, you and Rita Skeeter.'

'As far as Skeeter is concerned, the answer to your question seems quite obvious.'

'And as far as you are concerned?'

'I merely like to get your hackles up. Which is so easy it shouldn't even be fun. So,' he continued, cutting of her indignant protest, 'what would you like to know about Lucius?'

'Pretty much whatever comes to your mind. You're still in contact, I presume?'

'Oh yes, we meet with annoying frequency. His brandy is excellent, and I have news about Draco.'

'That doesn't sound like friendship.'

'Maybe not, but it is, believe me. Only the friendship is so old that one hardly bothers to mention it.' He smiled a thin smile.

'You were at school together?'

'Believe it or not, he's four years my senior. He was in his fifth year when I arrived at Hogwarts. Prefect, of course.' Snape summoned a cup of coffee for himself. 'I remember the girls committing the most outlandish pranks, only to make him notice them. He had to take points, whether he wanted to or not. For some of them that seemed to be enough to make their day.'

The idea made Hermione laugh. 'No wonder he became so conceited. Did he wear his hair long back then?'

'Uh-huh. Girls went to him hoping he'd tell them which potions he used. He never did, of course, but I believe that the mere promise of telling them considerably enriched his sex life. But' – he put down his cup – 'I'm sure old school anecdotes are not what you came to me for.'

'Not really, but they're fun anyway. If I asked you to tell me something about Lucius Malfoy as he is now, what would you say?'

Snape shrugged. 'His wings have been clipped, politically speaking, and he has lost much of his former verve. Personally I believe that it has to do less with age – he's only forty-eight, after all – than with a combination of frustration and maturity, difficult as it may be to believe the latter.'

'Do you think that Azkaban-'

'He lost everything he had, Miss Granger.'

'You can't be serious,' Hermione said vehemently. 'He's still filthy rich, and at least Draco is alive.'

Snape crossed his arms and cocked his head. 'Do you want to hear about Lucius, or do you want me to repeat the Average British Wizard's opinions on wealthy purebloods in general and the Malfoys in particular?'

'I merely meant to say-'

'You meant to say, Miss Granger, that Lucius doesn't have any reason to complain. I, on the other hand, meant to draw your attention to the fact that loss is a highly personal and subjective matter. Maybe I ought to have said that he lost everything he held dear.'

Hermione silently considered his words. 'I think I understand what you mean,' she finally said. 'So there's no chance of a reconciliation with Draco?'

'I'm afraid there isn't. And if I may give you some well-meant advice: Don't even try to talk to Draco about his father. He's still very creative when it comes to hexing people.'


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 2

The sun rose early at this time of year – the days hadn't yet reached their full midsummer's length, but it was the middle of May, and the birds started chirping outside the wide open windows at four in the morning.

Since his days in Azkaban, closed doors and drawn curtains had been giving Lucius a deep sense of discomfort, and so he was woken early by the first rays of the sun lighting his bedroom which faced east. He remained in bed for a while, his back propped up by a mound of pillows, and watched the shadow of the window cross elongate across the floor. The clearly defined lines etched a dark path through the vibrant labyrinth of colour on the carpet. No more twilight, no more cold, at least not while he was awake. He still dreamed of nothingness that sucked the warmth from his bones. Those were terrifying nightmares, images of emptiness that clung to his mind and left him panting and sweating in their wake. Severus had offered Dreamless Sleep potion, but Lucius had refused with a sneer, knowing that one night without horrifying dreams would turn him into an addict. He preferred fighting his own fights, in his own way. He'd always slept like a baby, until Azkaban. The irony of being plagued by nightmares now, after renouncing his old ways, was by no means lost on Lucius.

And he had indeed renounced his old ways, Lucius thought when a House Elf brought his cup of early morning tea. In the good old times he'd have kicked the stupid creature, just for the heck of it. Nowadays he was simply too bored to care.

The shadow became less sharply defined the more it progressed towards the bed. It was almost time to get up. Lucius sighed and flexed his right hand, observing the muscles of his forearm as they contracted and relaxed according to the movement of his hand. He was in prime shape, he was moderately busy, he didn't have a care in the world. Life was, to put it succinctly, boring. He didn't exactly pine for old times – the memories of those days were too closely associated to the loss of his family – but he longed for the feeling of excitement, for the sensation of his mind vibrating with possibilities, and for the deep, humming satisfaction of having power and being able to use it.

Running the various enterprises his family had accumulated during the last hundred or so years wasn't much of a challenge these days, acquiring a Quidditch team had proved to be less fun than he'd expected, and developing new spells was a hobby at best. Even sex wasn't as fun anymore as it used to be back in the days when he'd cheated on Narcissa. He'd never been in love with her, but she'd been a reliable, intelligent companion, and her lack of interest in sex hadn't really mattered, as Lucius never had to complain about a shortage of willing, if otherwise uninteresting, females. Nowadays there still was no scarcity of willing females, but Lucius sorely missed the intelligent conversation his wife had provided. Were attractive, clever women really so hard to come by, or did they just never cross his path, he wondered. Well, he'd met one or two of them, but their expectations as to what sex with a former Death Eater had to be like were so thoroughly revolting that he'd beaten a hasty retreat.

His teacup was empty, and Lucius reluctantly left his bed, to proceed to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. While applying a drying spell to his hair, he remembered that he had an appointment at ten with Hermione Granger. He had to be even more bored than he'd been aware of, Lucius mused, giving his misted-over image in the bathroom mirror a lopsided smile, if the idea of having breakfast with that annoying little witch was able to provoke a slight pang of excitement.

He returned to his bedroom, where a House Elf had already laid out his choice of clothes for the day. While he dressed, he tried to figure out what on earth had prompted Granger to pay him a visit. His hands were whiter than lilies these days, so the reason of her call at Malfoy Manor could hardly be professional. Why the woman should pay him a social call, out of the blue and after five years of silence, was beyond him. Draco maybe? He remembered his son's school stories well enough to be aware of Miss Granger's mostly misguided charitable streak. He snorted. Maybe she intended to convince him he had to free his House Elves and pay them decent wages?

Still smiling, Lucius left the bedroom and went downstairs to check whether the breakfast salon had been adequately prepared for his meeting with Miss Granger.

OOO

The fact that you owed a fellow wizard your life was easy to forget if you hadn't met the wizard in question for five years. But things were beginning to look a bit different if you had to Apparate to his house within the next fifteen minutes.

Hermione became suddenly aware that she'd dressed with extra care this morning, and stopped right in the middle of the tedious task of selecting the perfect pair of shoes to go with her outfit. Nice shoes certainly weren't going to make the situation any easier for her, especially as she'd been the one to land herself in it. Then again, really nice shoes did a lot for one's self-assurance, as did the nifty little charm she'd developed to tame her hair and the lovely underwear she'd put on under her robes, and the perfume, and the cosmetic charms...

'Who is the lucky fellow?' the hallway mirror asked her in snide tones.

'Not you too!' Hermione shot it an angry glare. 'It's a semi-professional appointment, and I'm feeling a bit insecure. So I want to look my best.'

The mirror whistled a merry little tune and didn't comment.

'All right, have it your way, you useless device of vanity!' Hermione said huffily and grabbed her handbag to check its contents.

'If it's a business appointment you're going to, where's your briefcase?' the mirror asked suddenly, making her jump.

'I said semi-professional, now shut up already.'

'Nervous, are we?'

'I'm certainly not nervous, but you ought to be, since I'm that close to smashing you.' Hermione held out her hand, her thumb and index maybe two millimetres apart.

The mirror sniffed. 'Very well. I shall refrain from talking to you. Ginny's more interesting to chat to anyway. Very intriguing, that habit she has of snogging her boyfriends out here in the hallway. I can't remember having such a good time since I was removed from Madam Hepplewhite's Massage Parlour in 1952. You and that gingerhead certainly didn't do much to keep me amused.'

'You weren't the only one who wasn't amused,' Hermione murmured. 'Apparate!'

A crack, and she was gone.

'Semi-professional,' the mirror grumbled. 'I'll be smashed if that's the truth.'

OOO

Not that she would ever have admitted it to a cheeky looking-glass, but Hermione was indeed nervous.

Besides her endeavours to gather information on Lucius Malfoy, Hermione had also spent a large part of the last three days trying to think of the best way to ask him about his dealings with Rufus Scrimgeour. The problem was that a best way simply didn't exist, not for this kind of question. The possibility of trying to catch him unawares had to be disregarded completely – Hermione knew her strengths and weaknesses too well to delude herself that she'd be able to out-Slytherin Lucius Malfoy. By whichever subtly contorted path she tried to approach the topic, in the end she'd have to ask Malfoy how exactly he'd obtained his freedom five years ago. And to imagine that his reaction was going to be anything but unpleasant would be naive in the extreme. Which left her with the dilemma of having to accost somebody whom she owed a life debt in order to ask him for another favour. The lack of leverage on her side was appalling – not the kind of situation she really cared to find herself in.

But there was no way she could escape now. She had to face the man and make the best of it.

Hermione walked the few yards from the Apparition point to the elegantly sweeping stairway and slowly climbed the low, deep steps. She really ought to have packed a Skiving Snack Box, she thought – a Chickenpox Chew would have done the trick quite nicely, so she could have made her excuses and left. Although with her luck she'd probably grab a Puking Pastille and vomit all over Malfoy's doorstep.

Her hand hadn't yet touched the brass knocker, when the door already swung back. A House Elf bowed deeply and invited her to enter. It looked quite chipper, Hermione noticed – not what she'd expected in a Malfoy House Elf. The old saying 'He left St Mungo's bandaged like a Malfoy Elf' owed its existence to a long and solid tradition of elf-bashing, after all. She followed it through the vast foyer, past muttering paintings and murmuring mirrors, and into a broad corridor whose carpeted floor swallowed the sound of her footsteps. The Elf pointed a spindly finger at a double door to their left. It opened noiselessly, and the corridor was immediately flooded with sunlight. Hermione had to shade her eyes against the sudden glare as she entered the room.

The aroma of coffee and freshly baked cake made her smile involuntarily, and she inhaled deeply. When Malfoy entered the room seconds later through a door to her right, her nervousness had abated completely and she was able to return his greeting with relative calm.

'I hope,' he said, gesturing her to the table that was groaning under its load of food, 'that you are reasonably hungry.'

Hermione's stomach rumbled loudly in response, and she blushed. She'd squandered so much of her time this morning preparing herself that she'd had a cup of hastily prepared tea, nothing else.

'I'll take that as a yes,' he said. 'Make yourself comfortable then – I do hope you don't have any pressing appointments, so we'll be able to have breakfast in dignified leisure?'

'If you're willing to give me that much of your time, I'd certainly be grateful. Oh, are those poached eggs with Sauce Hollandaise?'

Lucius carefully inspected the dish before pronouncing the verdict that, yes, that was indeed what they were. 'A favourite?' he asked, biting back a smile as she handed the dish back to him with a woeful look at the single poached egg she'd left there.

'Yes, absolutely. The problem is' – Hermione poured first him and then herself a cup of coffee – 'that I'm crap at household spells and especially cooking spells, and that I can't do it the Muggle way either.'

'Hm.' Lucius eyed her with curiosity. 'It is hard to believe that this particular kind of spells should cause you any difficulty, given your overall prowess with a wand.'

Hermione's knife hovered in midair over her half-buttered toast. Had Malfoy just paid her a compliment? 'Ms Weasley used to tell me that I lacked focus.'

Hiding a snort by pretending to cough, Lucius availed himself of the solitary egg. 'I suppose that is her subtle way of telling you that you are not her idea of the ideal daughter-in-law?'

'She never missed an opportunity to tell me exactly that in the most unsubtle ways,' Hermione said. 'But fortunately that is a thing of the past now.'

'You ended the relationship with Mr Ronald Weasley?

'Yes, I did, a week ago. Although I still don't understand why I didn't do it earlier.' Suddenly realizing that she was rambling – to Malfoy, of all people! – Hermione jerked up her head and gave him an apologetic smile. 'Sorry. I didn't mean to bother you with my personal stuff. We hardly know each other.' She took a sip of her coffee. 'It was very generous of you to invite me here, Mr Malfoy. I have to admit I would have expected an appointment at your office.'

'I work from home whenever possible. Which is most of the time, really, because I am fortunate enough to have chosen my staff very carefully. They report back to me twice every week.'

There it was, finally, the old Malfoy arrogance she'd always hated. 'I find that having to leave my home and going to work has its advantages, though.'

'In your line of work, I suppose it would.'

Hermione frowned at him. If he'd just insulted her, the invective had been so subtly disguised that she wasn't able to recognize it as such. 'I don't quite understand.'

Her words were greeted by a bland smile. 'Unless your home is as heavily warded against intruders as Malfoy Manor, it certainly wouldn't be wise to keep anything of importance there, Miss Granger, like case files or top secret documents. You do have to deal with criminals, don't you?'

He'd provided her with the cue she needed. She had to ask him, now.If he threw her out, she was going to miss that scrumptious-looking cake, though... 'Speaking of files,' she said, forcing her voice to stay calm and composed, 'I went to have a look at your own files a few days ago.'

'Which is perfectly within your competence, I'm sure,' he answered. If she'd hit a sore spot, he was doing a sterling job of not showing it.

'I know. The problem is, there weren't any files.'

'That's hardly possible, Miss Granger. I had to appear before the Wizengamot three times, two of which you ought to remember. The first was well before your time. There has to be a quite impressive file, although I'm not sure I understand your motives for looking it up.'

'Motives aside, Mr Malfoy, there was no file and no empty space on the shelf.'

'The Ministry has been known to place more, erm, delicate material under protective charms or spells.'

Hermione smiled grimly. 'I'm well aware of that fact, especially since I've done so myself a few times. The recent Death Eater trials, you know.'

He didn't even bat an eyelid. 'Of course.' The hand that held his coffee cup neither shook nor trembled. 'If you came here to ask me whether the files are in my possession, the answer is no.'

'I came here to ask what you had to give Scrimgeour, to make him set you free and destroy your files.'

'My dear Miss Granger – please try the smoked salmon, it is excellent – have you ever been to Azkaban?'

With a wave of her hand Hermione declined the proffered dish, although the salmon did look delicious. 'No. I've never been to Azkaban. Maybe you'd care to enlighten me?'

'With the greatest pleasure. Azkaban is – was, I should say, because our esteemed Minister has changed that as well – a living hell of cold, absolute silence and too much light to sleep well but too little light to see well. There is nothing, Miss Granger, nothing but the echo of your thoughts in your mind.'

'If you mean to indicate that it was impossible for you to contact Scrimgeour from inside the prison, then I have to assume that he came to you. Which makes sense, since he obviously needed you. Or rather your money and whatever else it was you gave him. Although I rather suspect it was money. And quite a lot of it, wasn't it?'

Shaking his head, Malfoy looked at her and frowned. 'I have to admit I am rather unsure how to react to this... unexpected turn our conversation seems to have taken.'

'What about an honest answer?'

He smiled and looked pensively into his coffee cup. 'My dear Miss Granger. Refreshing though your, er, bluntness may be, please try to understand that my willingness to be charmed by it does have its limits.' He raised his head and looked straight into her eyes. 'I like playing games as much as the next wizard, but considering the seriousness of your allegations, I find it a trifle difficult to regard this as a game.'

'I never intended it to be a game, Mr Malfoy.'

'How kind of you to enlighten me. So, if I understand you correctly, you asked me for an appointment and subsequently accepted an invitation to my house, in order to ask questions of a nature so very... let us say sensitive, that summoning me to the ministry and questioning me there would have seemed, er, unwise?'

Despite herself, Hermione had to admire Malfoy for the subtlety of this threat. But she had considered the possibility before coming here. 'Yes, Mr Malfoy, you understand me correctly. I have asked my question without prior authorization from the Minister. As a matter of fact, the Minister doesn't know about my present inquiry. If you feel that I have violated your personal sphere or, er, reputation in any way, please feel free to tell the Minister. I am ready to face the consequences.' She smiled at him and helped herself to more coffee, trying not to be unnerved by his cat-like gaze.

'Inquiry?' he said slowly. 'I have tried to keep myself informed as best I could about the legal reform. But I was not aware that the Counsel of the Minister takes an active part in investigations – I thought that this particular duty had been delegated to law enforcement?'

Now he'd caught her. Hermione would never have thought that Malfoy took an interest in McGonagall's reforms. Well, she thought, that ought to teach her a lesson about the questionable value of prejudice. 'When I said inquiry, I didn't mean an official investigation related to a case I'm working on.'

'I see. So this is a purely private investigation?' Malfoy purred, cutting off a slice of cake in a manner that made Hermione suspect that he was mentally substituting her throat for the cake.

'It is... loosely related to a case I'm currently working on.' Damn, she really hadn't meant to give him that much information.

'Loosely related, I see. But' – he speared a piece of his cake in an almost loving fashion – 'I think I remember that the privacy regulations our esteemed Minister established are rather rigid. An entirely superfluous measure, if I may say so, considering the high standards of professional integrity of her employees.'

Hermione hated having to admit it to herself, but she'd both misjudged and underestimated Lucius Malfoy. The fact that he'd been keeping himself to himself didn't mean he hadn't kept up with the latest developments. And she'd been wrong in concluding from his less than amicable sentiments towards McGonagall that he wasn't interested in what the Minister was doing. The information she'd gleaned from Snape and Skeeter had been correct, but she'd misinterpreted it. If her suspicions concerning Scrimgeour and Malfoy were correct, Hermione could almost be sure that he wasn't going to press charges against her – he wouldn't want to tickle a sleeping dragon. But she couldn't be entirely sure. And if her theory was wrong, she may just as well prepare herself to kiss her job goodbye. Breach of the privacy decree was a serious offence. She had to tell him the truth, whether she liked it or not.

'All right,' Hermione said. 'I'm going to tell you the whole story, if you want to hear it.'

'I do like a good story,' Malfoy replied, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. 'Do tell me, by all means.'

'I'm currently working on a case against a ministry employee – a former Auror who was later transferred to Mysteries.'

'So Lazenby's unfortunate passion for betting on the loser has finally caught up with him, has it?'

Unable to hide her surprise, Hermione merely gaped at him.

Lucius smiled. 'I'm not a clairvoyant, Miss Granger. I merely happen to know a lot of ministry gossip.'

'Yes, er...' Hermione passed a hand over her eyes. 'Yes, it's Lazenby. He's currently being held in custody. If the Wizengamot makes full use of the possibilities provided by the law, they can sentence him to ten years in Azkaban.' Feeling a gnawing need for fortification, Hermione took a slice of chocolate cake. 'I interviewed him on Monday, and' – she tried a forkful and was glad that, if she'd underestimated Malfoy, at least she hadn't overestimated the cake – 'he wanted to make a deal. The usual, you know, trading information for a more lenient verdict.'

'I see,' Lucius said, playing with his fork. 'He told you this absurd story about Scrimgeour having offered me freedom for money, and you bought it.'

'Not quite.' Hermione smiled sweetly. 'He told me about Scrimgeours's request that he turn your wand into a portkey. Since the Minister vanished without a trace the very day you were set free, I found it difficult to believe in a mere coincidence.'

'Quite understandable.' Lucius stopped scrutinizing his fork and turned his attention to Hermione. 'But somehow I cannot rid myself of the suspicion that, if I corroborated Lazenby's tale, you still wouldn't be satisfied.'

'Well, it would be a first step.'

'Towards which goal?'

'Finding out where Scrimgeour is hiding, of course.'

Much to her surprise, that answer got her a genuine smile from her host. 'You certainly don't bother with trivial aims, such as pay rises and buying new shoes, do you, Miss Granger?'

'Well, I do like shoes, to be honest. But you're right, I usually aim a little higher than most people.'

'A character trait I truly appreciate. But you must be aware, Miss Granger, that the information you require is of the tell-her-and-kill-her kind?'

'I didn't...' Hermione involuntarily clutched her throat. 'I didn't mean to use it against you, Mr Malfoy.'

'And I'm supposed to take your word for it?'

'Well...yes?'

Lucius laughed. Hermione didn't find it reassuring in the least. 'How very endearing.'

Now she saw a small vein pulsing at his temple. So she had hit a nerve after all, and it seemed that her theory wasn't as far-fetched as his previous lack of reaction had almost led her to believe. 'Is that all you have to say?'

'What do you expect me to say?'

'I was rather expecting a yes or no. Are you going to tell me about Scrimgeour or aren't you? If you are, well, you don't seem willing to accept my promise that I won't use the information against you – that's entirely understandable, by the way. So we'd have to find a way to ensure I won't, and no, killing me is not what I had in mind.'

Malfoy didn't answer but studied her from under half-closed eyelids, his index finger tapping against his lips. The silence grew heavier the longer it lasted, and Hermione had to make a conscious effort to stop herself fidgeting with the cutlery and napkin. How did the man do it, for heaven's sake? He was somehow able to convey additional weight to this silence and make it unbearable. It was a skill she had to learn, it might work wonders with her more recalcitrant customers. But right now, she had to end it somehow, because it was really beginning to frazzle her nerves.

'There's the life debt I owe you,' Hermione said, mentally kicking herself for having brought it up first. She had intended it to be her last trump card. 'You could collect it by making me promise...' His eyes were holding hers now in an uncomfortably tight grip, and she fell silent.

'You still have a lot to learn about negotiation tactics, my dear Miss Granger.' He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, his eyes never leaving hers. 'It just won't do for a debtor to ask for another loan, offering to pay back the second with the sum he ought to have paid for the first.'

'But...' Hermione bit her lip. 'If I manage to find Scrimgeour, you might get your money, or whatever it was you gave him, back, and you'd have the satisfaction of seeing him go to Azkaban...'

'If I had the information you seem to want so badly, don't you think I would have had the means of finding and exposing him? No, Miss Granger, I'm afraid you played your cards less than adroitly, although I doubt there were any cards to begin with. And now all the trump cards are in my hand. Most of them I won't use, although you'll have to take my word for it. More coffee?' Hermione merely nodded, unable to speak. 'As to the life debt you owe me – such an annoyingly dramatic notion, isn't it? – maybe you would consent to giving me the pleasure of your company every now and then, say once a week?'

OOO

'Getting plastered every Friday night seems to become our habit,' Ginny said when she returned to their living room with another bottle of wine. 'So, just to make sure I understood you correctly.' She uncorked the bottle with a flick of her wand and refilled both their glasses. 'Lazenby tells you about that portkey he had to make for Scrimgeour, and that it was obviously meant for Malfoy. You conclude that Scrimgeour offered Malfoy his freedom and evidently also the destruction of all his files for money. You go to the archive and find that Malfoy's files have indeed vanished without a trace. So you go to Malfoy and ask him whether your theory is correct. Not only doesn't he give you an answer, but he's now free to go to McG at any moment he chooses and denounce you, because you broke the privacy regulations. On top of that, he tricked you into going out with him once a week, because you thought that was how he meant to collect his debt. Which he didn't, because he never formally said the words.' She emptied half her glass in one go. 'Well, congratulations, Hermione. When you fuck up, you fuck up big time, I have to give you that.'

'I wasn't aware that he had to speak a formula. Nobody ever bothered to tell me,' Hermione said gruffly.

'You could just tell him it was a misunderstanding, and that you don't want to go out with him after all.'

'And risk that he'll run to McG and tell her everything? Do you think I'm crazy?'

Ginny slowly shook her head. 'I think you're misjudging the situation here. All right, I'll admit that he tricked you into going out with him. But that means he's interested. And if he's interested, he certainly wouldn't do anything to piss you off.'

'Interested?' Hermione tried to shake off the alcoholic haze that was slowly forming in her brain. 'You mean... interested _that_ way?'

'Are there any other ways a man may be interested in a young, attractive and clever woman?'

'But... But he's not my type!' Hermione wailed.

'Well you don't have to jump into bed with him, he merely asked you out for dinner. You're certainly able to defend your virtue, if that's indeed what you want.'

'Of course that's what I want. I clearly told you he's not my type, didn't I?'

'I heard you,' Ginny said dryly. 'I'm just not sure what it means. Do you find him physically repugnant?'

'N-no, not repugnant. But I don't feel particularly attracted either.'

'Did you feel particularly attracted to Ron?'

Hermione snorted. 'Well, not really. He'd kind of grown on me.'

'So you can exclude the possibility of Malfoy growing on you with absolute certainty?'

'No of course I can't.'

'And you can't deny he's quite clever, maybe almost as clever as you.'

'Considering that he played me like a fish on a line, I'd say he's cleverer.' Hermione held out her glass for a refill. 'Or certainly a lot more astute than I am. Bastard!' she said with feeling.

'I'm sure you'll never lack for interesting topics to discuss with him,' Ginny said pensively. 'Have you read the piece he's published in Charms Quarterly? It seems that he's well on his way towards discovering some new healing charms – derived from originally Dark spells – they might revolutionize magical surgery.'

'Really? I wasn't aware that Malfoy does research. Besides I only read Potions & Alchemy on a regular basis.'

'Well, now you know. I told you he'd be interesting to talk to.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Why don't you go out with him yourself, if you think he's so very _interesting_?'

'I don't really care for older men. Besides I'm going out with his son, so dating his dad would be a bit strange.'

'You're going out with Draco? Since when?'

'Oh, we've only just started dating. Don't mention it to anybody, please, it's all still very fragile, and I wouldn't want to-'

'Hey,' Hermione interrupted her. 'That sounds serious!'

'It might be. But please don't tell anybody. Just imagine what would happen if Harry or Ron were to get wind of it.'

Hermione stumbled over to her friend and hugged her. 'That's good news. And I promise I won't tell.'

OOO

The evening of Saturday found Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape lazing in comfy leather chairs in front of the library fireplace. Having dinner together – usually at their respective homes, very seldom at a restaurant – on Saturdays had become a tradition both wizards cherished. They'd been friends, although not always close, for more than thirty years, and once rid of Voldemort, none of them had found it necessary anymore to keep up their former facades and masks. They were able to relax in each other's company.

'I had breakfast yesterday with the delightful Miss Hermione Granger,' Lucius said after pouring them a second brandy.

'Oh, really? I'd been wondering when she was going to contact you. She came to my office earlier this week, to ask me questions about you.'

'Ah.' Lucius studied the contents of his glass, which he was currently swirling around. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'Wouldn't that have spoiled the surprise?'

Lucius snorted. 'I could have lived with that. Did she say anything to you about the purpose of her intended visit?'

'No, she didn't. I have to admit I was quite intrigued – she called it a semi-professional matter. So what did she want?'

'Information concerning my deal with Scrimgeour.'

'What?' Severus almost choked on his brandy. 'How could she have known there was a deal?'

'Lazenby, that idiot – they're currently holding him in custody for embezzlement of public funds, and it seems that he was quite eager to barter information for a more lenient sentence than he deserves.'

'What did Lazenby have to do with your deal?'

'He was the one who made the portkey. And that's what he told Granger.'

'Merlin's...' Severus shook his head. 'How bad do you think it is?'

'Not as bad as it might be. At least not as far as Granger is concerned. She merely wants to find Scrimgeour but has no intention to drag me into it. At least that's what she said.'

'She wants to – what? Find Scrimgeour? The girl must be out of her mind!'

'Quite the ambitious young lady isn't she?'

'Suicidal, I'd say;' Severus commented dryly.

'She's a Gryffindor, Severus. For them, ambitious and suicidal are usually synonyms. But' – he took a sip of his brandy and nodded appreciatively – 'what worries me a good deal more than Miss Granger's plans is the possibility of Lazenby making his story more widely known, especially if the deal he proposed to her doesn't work out.'

'Quite a nasty impasse you're in here,' Severus said after a few moments of silent reflection. 'Either you give her the information she desires and Lazenby gets what he wants-'

'Which won't necessarily keep him from talking,' Lucius remarked.

'Which, as you so correctly observed, won't necessarily keep him from talking. Except if Granger agrees to Obliviate him.'

'Fat chance,' Lucius muttered.

'Yes I'm afraid she won't. Or you don't give it to her, which means that Lazenby won't get what he wants. I that case, I'm pretty sure he'll talk.'

Lucius nodded. 'He'll have to be eliminated, as quickly as possible.'

'I'd seriously advise you not to eliminate him. Granger would immediately suspect you, and knowing her, she won't give you a second's peace until she's able to pin it on you. Don't underestimate her, Lucius.'

His fingers drumming an impatient rhythm on the armrest of his chair, Lucius nodded. 'Yes, that's definitely a weak point. But you agree, I suppose, that I somehow have to get rid of Lazenby.'

'Not necessarily of the man himself,' Severus said. 'It would be sufficient to get rid of his memory'

'Yes I know!' Lucius hit the armrest with his fist. 'But although I may be able to find a way to have a poison slipped into his food, I certainly can't walk into the ministry to Obliviate him. And that's a job I'd prefer to do myself.'

'Granger could do it, though.'

'I think we've already ruled out that possibility.'

'She owes you a life debt, doesn't she? Make her repay it by Obliviating Lazenby.'

'That's... very unsubtle,' Lucius said, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

'The less subtle, the more it will appeal to a Gryffindor,' Severus said, chuckling. 'You merely have to make her warm to the idea that she'll kill two birds with one stone: firstly, she gets the information she wants so badly, and secondly, she is able to discharge her debt.'

'Yes but...' Lucius massaged his forehead. 'I'd still have to make sure she doesn't use that information against me.'

'Obliviate her as well.'

'No. No that wouldn't...'

Severus leaned forward and grinned evilly at his friend. 'Don't tell me you've taken a fancy to the young lady'

'Well I...' Suddenly Lucius began to laugh. 'To tell you the truth, yes I have. I think I have.'

'Care to tell me more about it? You always were quite effusive when you fell in love. Or is that a thing of the past?'

'Not really, no. I'd like to tell you.' Lucius took the brandy bottle and held it out towards his friend in a silent offer.

'It has to be quite bad,' Severus said lightly 'if you're voluntarily offering me another glass of the 1863 Malefoi. Which I gladly accept, of course.'

Lucius merely grinned and poured them both a generous measure. 'Just imagine,' he said dreamily, 'She came here, with nothing in her hands, no tricks up her sleeve, and almost succeeded in manoeuvring me into telling her my best-kept secret. Were it not for my rather thorough knowledge of the new legal system, she might even have succeeded completely.'

'The Privacy Decree?'

'Exactly. She's still too young and of course too junior to be able to judge correctly where transgression is possible. And' – he sipped from his glass and smiled dreamily – 'for all her nerve, The Great Unnerving Silence is still too much for her. But she does have potential, undoubtedly.'

'I thought she might have outgrown that particular weakness by now. Well, she might have, if she hadn't squandered the last five years with that Weasley moron. The Weasley men are not generally known for furthering their partners' growth process.'

'Except for Arthur, of course.'

'He'd have done well to attempt a bit of pruning earlier on, yes. But the sons all take after their mother. You, on the other hand,' Severus said, leaning over and patting Lucius's hand, 'would be much better for Miss Granger. You can afford to let her grow as much as she wants. You don't lack self-assurance after all.'

'Exactly my thoughts. Besides...' Lucius stared into the flames for a while. 'I think I've never met a woman who smells as divine as Miss Granger.'

'Really? Well, you always preferred tartness to sweetness. She's very lemony, with a hint of gooseberry and ginger.'

'Don't remind me,' Lucius growled, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. 'The mere thought... When I hinted at her breach of the privacy regulation, she became all hot and flushed. I could have eaten her whole, right there and then. Did I mention that I tricked her into going out with me?'

'No, you didn't.'

'It was almost too easy, considering she's Muggleborn,' Lucius said with a wicked smile. 'I banked on her ignorance of the more arcane traditions and mentioned her life debt, to immediately hint at the possibility of the two of us going out once a week.'

'And she thought that by accepting your proposal she'd repay...' Severus threw back his head and laughed. 'Excellent, Lucius. Very nicely done. She'll be as mad as hell when she finds out, though.'

'She'll be even madder once I tell her how exactly I plan to make her repay her debt,' Lucius said darkly. 'And I still haven't found a way to make sure she won't serve my head to McGonagall on a silver platter afterwards.'

'Seeing as you seem to be quite fond of the young lady, the solution is obvious I'd say.'

Lucius frowned at him. 'Obvious? What do you mean?'

'It's quite simple, really. Marry her.'


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 3

Lucius stared at his friend for almost a full minute, lost for words. 'Severus,' he finally said, 'are you sure you came here with your mental faculties intact? Because this is the most preposterous...' He fell silent again. The look of concentration on his face intensified and slowly turned into a smirk. 'The Canterbury Handfasting,' he muttered. 'Accio Pelleas Finchley's Manual on Handfasting Rites!'

He deftly caught the heavy tome and immediately started searching the index for the entry he needed. 'Ah, here it is. Excellent thinking, Severus,' he remarked, briefly looking up from the book to smile at the other wizard. 'Let us see, then. Formula, yes, sacred stone, well, we'll manage to find one, druid – a ministry official will do I suppose? Because I'd really hate the idea of some grimy, bearded-'

'They have a bonder at the ministry who specializes in the more obscure handfasting rituals.'

'What a relief. All right, here comes the important part. Legal implications: Neither of the spouses will be able to take legal action against the other, unless it be the direct consequence of having suffered bodily harm by his or her spouse, or in order to request a divorce. That does sound reassuring, I must say. But' – he closed the book, putting his finger between the pages he'd just been reading – 'what if she tells somebody else? A journalist for instance?'

'Why should she do such a thing? She wants to find out about Scrimgeour, how would telling a journalist your little secret take her any closer to that goal? And I really don't think she means to cause you any harm. What Hermione Granger wants and as always wanted,' Severus started pontificating in his best classroom voice, 'is recognition. She wants the wizarding world to acknowledge that she's brighter and a better witch than her pure-blooded peers. It's been an obsession with her since she started at Hogwarts. Her essays were always at least one foot longer than required, she always scored more than one hundred percent at her exams, but the system didn't allow for a higher mark than Outstanding. She always did her best, which was considerably more than her peers managed to achieve, but she never received higher marks than they did, because there simply is no margin left for the truly gifted. You just have to look at her friendship with Potter and Weasley: she was the brains of the trio, but Potter's the hero now, and Weasley the hero's heroic sidekick. Nobody ever mentions her.'

'I saw her fight in the last battle,' Lucius said. 'I've never, ever witnessed such deadly precision, and that's saying something, considering my rather intimate acquaintance with Bella's curses.' He rubbed his chest.

'Does that scar still give you trouble?' Severus asked.

'Only very rarely. I'm grateful that it wasn't Granger who cast it, or somebody else would be enjoying this lovely brandy now.'

'So,' Severus said, nodding towards the book in Lucius's lap, 'how do you feel about a second marriage?'

'It might be fun. Life has been rather boring lately.'

'Boredom is something you'll certainly not experience if married to Miss Granger.'

'Certainly not. I rather imagine that I'll have to run for cover most of the time – she's such a bossy little thing,' Lucius said with a smile of fond anticipation playing around his lips. 'Imagine all that bossiness and determination in bed...'

'Just the thing for someone as lazy as you, isn't it?'

'I wouldn't describe myself as lazy, but I'd certainly appreciate a woman who takes the initiative from time to time.'

'So you merely have to face the trifling matter of having to get Miss Granger to marry you and then to Obliviate Lazenby. Have you been able to find out when the trial will take place?'

'As a matter of fact, I have. Luck definitely seems to be on my side. The Wizengamot's schedule is already crammed until the start of the holidays, and they'll return for sessions only in September. Which means that I have three months to accomplish the, er, trifling matter.' He put the book down on the side table next to his armchair. 'Is the old kiss-them-at-the-second-and-fuck-them-at-the-third rule still valid?'

'I think it is. It's a rule almost as old as mankind. Although I still prefer the fuck-them-at-the-first-and-chuck-them-at-the-second variation.'

'That might do for a common strumpet, but certainly not for one's future wife.'

'Your sudden changes of moral paradigm will never cease to astound me, dear friend. Speaking of moral paradigms – Draco is currently dating Ginevra Weasley, and it seems that Cupid as switched to the heavy weaponry. The boy is positively giddy with love.'

Lucius pursed his lips. 'Hm. Two young and let us say, forceful Gryffindors in the family? That might cause quite a tsunami in the gene pool – Oh, Merlin's balls!'

'What?' Severus asked, rather taken aback by his friend's sudden and unexplainable state of agitation.

'What if she wants to have children? The property is entailed to Draco – she'll have my guts for garters if her own children are discriminated!'

'Only the Manor is entailed to Draco unless I'm very much mistaken. In case you and Miss Granger really have children, you'll just have to give them the French part of your possessions, which can't be regarded as discrimination. Although...' He cleared his throat. 'Don't you think that such concerns are slightly, er, premature? You still have to get her to marry you, remember?'

OOO

A spectacular hangover and Ginny's refreshingly prosaic views of all things Malfoy had managed to calm Hermione down sufficiently for a little light shopping on Sunday. The two young women were just about to leave the flat and give themselves to the joys of unbridled purchasing, when an eagle owl of clearly Malfoy-an origin swept in majestically through the open window. It ignored Crookshanks' hissing and spitting, and swooped down to perch on the living room table.

'Do you think Lucius teaches them how to hold out their feet in this horribly arrogant manner?' Ginny remarked, while Hermione was busy detaching a cream-coloured envelope from the owl's right foot.

Hermione didn't answer but instead broke the seal, pulled a card from the envelope and started to read. 'Shit!' she hissed. Crookshanks gave her a questioning look, resignedly accepted that his witch was much better at hissing than he was, and retired to the kitchen to console himself with a few bites of tuna.

Ginny, who had walked over to stand behind her friend and read over her shoulder, nodded and giggled. 'An evening of your choice? And a venue of your choice?' She grabbed Hermione's shoulder. 'Oh, you have to take him to Muggle London, please Hermione, please!'

'Why on earth should I-'

'Well, that's obvious, isn't it? Either he's going to embarrass himself terribly-'

'Lucius Malfoy embarrassing himself in the Muggle world means the body count of an average train wreck. I don't think I like the idea.'

'Hm... Maybe you're right. I was thinking more along the lines of Malfoy wearing knickerbockers and an Elvis shirt.'

Too tactful to mention that Lucius Malfoy probably had more style than Ginny's father, Hermione merely shook her head. 'No, I wouldn't do that. If he realizes that I merely wanted to embarrass him he might go to McG after all. I'm not afraid of him, but to irritate him merely for the fun of it would be a big mistake. It'll have to be the wizarding world, and I'll leave the choice of venue to him. And I'll suggest Wednesday, so I can leave early because I have to work on Thursday. Off you go,' she addressed the owl. I'll send my answer later!'

'Well,' Ginny said cheerfully, 'at least your date is the ideal pretext for extensive shopping.'

Hermione merely rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Diagon Alley was seething with wizards and witches intent on spending their money. Ginny and Hermione fought their way towards Frills & Fripperies, the boutique Lavender Brown had established together with her friend Parvati Patil. Hermione's rather distant attitude towards her former roommates hadn't become more cordial over the years, but even she had to admit that the two women had excellent taste and that their product range was superior by far to that of Madam Malkin or other, more traditional shops. She'd only been to Frills & Fripperies once, but Ginny was a regular customer.

After enduring the shop owners' shrill cries of joy and a seemingly never-ending series of hugs and airy pecks on the cheek, Ginny and Hermione set about choosing clothes.

'No, no, no!' Lavender exclaimed, wrenching a set of dress robes Hermione had intended to try on out of her hands. 'You can't wear indigo, not with your skin tone!'

Involuntarily touching her cheek, Hermione inquired what could possibly be wrong with her skin tone.

'It's pink,' Parvati said in a tone of voice that left no doubt about her opinions on Hermione's taste. 'Shades of blue are for women with a yellowish skin tone. You have to wear shades of green, grey, silver, or else pink and dark red. Leave the blues alone, they don't do anything for you. Except kill your complexion, and that's not what you want, is it?'

'Er, no,' Hermione said. 'But I happen to like blue.'

'Have you ever tried green?'

'Not really. I don't want to look like a frog.'

'Try looking like a mermaid instead,' Lavender said from behind her. 'Try this!' With a theatrical sweep, she took a set of jade-green robes off a rack. 'You've got the boobs to wear it – it looks absolutely awful on flat-chested women.'

Considering that the bodice was practically transparent, Hermione was sure that the size and form of her breasts wouldn't remain a secret to anybody within a five hundred yard range. 'I can't wear this. Apart from being totally see-through, my, uh, boobs would lack support and you can't wear a bra underneath.'

Lavender and Parvati exchanged a knowing look and giggled. 'Try it on, and you'll see what it does.'

'Oh come on, try it, Hermione!' Ginny had joined the group and evidently got her loyalties mixed up. She merely grinned at Hermione's furious glare. 'You don't have to buy it, for heaven's sake.'

A lightning-quick analysis of her current predicament told Hermione that to give in and try the stupid rag would be the quickest way out of the diabolic trio's grip. She sighed, took the robes and made her way to the changing rooms. She'd expected to look ridiculous in that garment. But she had to admit that she did indeed look spectacular. Not only had the fabric of the bodice been charmed to somehow obscure her breasts while still remaining transparent, it had also been spelled to display her breasts to perfection. The skirt was full and multi-layered, and the waistline maybe an inch higher than usual, so that her legs seemed longer.

A chorus of rapt 'Oooh!'s greated her when she emerged from the changing room.

'I have to eat my words,' Ginny said, beaming at her. 'You must buy it!'

They spent three hours at the boutique – a most unusual pastime for Hermione, who never wasted much time on the acquisition of clothes – and left with four sets of robes each, accompanied by matching shoes and underwear.

'So,' Ginny said when they'd secured a table at Fortescue's and ordered two large sundaes, 'which of them are you going to wear on Wednesday?'

'I'd say that depends on the choice of restaurant. The little black number seems like the safest bet – I certainly wouldn't want to be overdressed.'

'Not to mention that the slit displays your legs to their best advantage.'

'Oh shut up already. I have no intention to show Malfoy my legs.'

Ginny merely raised her eyebrows, thus considerably infuriating her friend.

OOO

Given Lucius Malfoy's obvious interest in her company, Hermione hadn't yet given up on her hope of getting the information she so badly wanted. But she'd learned to be patient and refrain herself, and to listen to her inner Slytherin – it told her that bringing the question up again on their first date was not a good idea. Not that Malfoy would ever believe she'd given up, but it simply wouldn't do to let him see (once more, for she'd already made that particular mistake) exactly how eager she was.

She paid Lazenby another visit on the Thursday following her dinner with Malfoy, mainly to inform him that his trial was going to take place only in September. His lawyer was present this time, and the meeting was short and pretty much routine. Lazenby didn't so much as hint at his proposal, which suited Hermione just fine. Bail was requested and refused, since Hermione would have bet her right hand on Lazenby leaving the country the moment he set foot outside the ministry. The fact that she also didn't want Lazenby to spread his story about Scrimgeour and Malfoy did play a certain part in her decision, although she tried to deny it to herself. When denial didn't work anymore, she finally admitted it to herself, but refused to acknowledge that it had anything to do with protecting Malfoy.

Their evening together had been a lot nicer than she cared to admit, but that didn't mean she intended to protect him. He was more than capable of protecting himself, wasn't he? Although it would be nice to protect somebody who didn't really need it, just for a change...

Hermione told herself to get a grip and spent the rest of the day immersed in her work. Contrary to her initial intentions, she hadn't excused herself early on Wednesday evening but stayed until past midnight, and therefore arrived home in a state of total exhaustion on Thursday evening, drank a glass of wine while already undressing, and went to bed early. Ginny was busy all Thursday and Friday at the Wizengamot, and so the two friends met again in their living room on Friday evening. A few bottles of white wine were waiting in the ice box, there were nibbles on the table, and both women had changed into comfy sweatpants and old t-shirts.

'So, how was dinner?' Ginny asked as soon as their glasses were full.

'Okay,' Hermione said through a mouthful of peanuts and shrugged in what she hoped was a discouraging manner.

'Good,' Ginny said, giving her a radiant smile and fishing the last edition of Witch Weekly from under the couch. 'You don't mind?' She gestured at the magazine. 'I need to relax a bit, I'm totally stressed out.' Holding the wineglass in one hand, she propped the magazine up against her thigh and started leafing through it with her free hand.

Hermione, who'd expected indignant protest and insistent questioning, suddenly felt rather cheated. Not that the evening with Malfoy had been anything more than, well, nice, but she'd have liked to tell Ginny about it. Malfoy really was a brilliant conversationalist (she'd wanted to tell Ginny, because Ginny had been so sure he'd be) and he'd made her the right kind of compliment on her robes (which Ginny had advised her to choose so telling her about it was only fair, wasn't it) and he'd merely kissed her hand (she had to tell Ginny that, only to put her in her place after her rather lurid predictions the most harmless of which had been being chained to the bed) and the food had been divine (that was important information, since Ginny might want to try the restaurant with Draco). And when she'd put her napkin back on the table it had suddenly contained two tickets for the opening night of Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro' at Covent Garden, and how on earth had he guessed that this was her favourite opera, and how had Lucius Malfoy, whose newfound tolerance for Muggleborn witches she could hardly believe, managed to secure opera tickets?

She was darkly contemplating the injustice of it all, when a peal of laughter from Ginny interrupted her dire musings. 'Ready now?' Ginny asked, wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks. 'You ought to have seen your face, really...'

'You sneaky little-'

'Oh come on. I merely wanted to shorten the resistance phase. So. Tell me all about Wednesday. Did you kiss?'

'Erm, no?'

'Very good.' Ginny nodded. 'So he probably follows the old kiss-her-on-the-second-fuck-her-on-the-third rule.'

'I _beg_ your pardon?'

'That's what the well-bred wizard does. Not that he absolutely _has_ to fuck you on the third date, but he certainly mustn't do so before.'

'I think I'm dreaming,' Hermione said weakly.

'No you're not. What did he have to say about the black dress?'

Hermione blinked a few times before answering, 'He liked it. He said it was, erm, both discreet and highly erotic. That's good, isn't it?'

'Why would you want to know? He's not your type. As you told me repeatedly.'

'I merely wanted to make sure it's the kind of compliment a well-bred wizard would pay.'

'Oh, I see. Well it is.'

'Fine.' Hermione attempted a glare but failed miserably. 'He also kissed my hand. That okay?'

'Absolutely,' Ginny said, biting her lip.

'And, Ginny, he got us tickets for Figaro at Covent Garden!'

Ginny cocked her head. 'A hairdresser? Well, that's what I'd call a bit strange...'

'No, the opera, Ginny! The opera, my favourite opera!'

A grin slowly spread across Ginny's face. 'Oh! Now that's... Is it romantic?'

'No, classical, why-'

'I mean the plot! Is it romantic?'

Hermione snorted. 'It's mainly about an aristocrat cheating on his wife. Although... the woman he attempts to seduce is in love with his manservant, and she resists his attempts, so yes, I suppose you could say it's also a bit romantic.'

'Kiss-her-at-the-second-fuck-her-at-the-third,' Ginny chanted, jumping up and down on the ominously creaking couch. 'Oh it's so exciting! If he's only half as good at kissing as Draco is...'

'Why do you think he should be only half as good?' Hermione asked defensively. 'He's twice his age, he might be twice as good!'

'Brace yourself then,' Ginny said and giggled. 'If he's twice as good, your brain is going to turn to mush instantly.'

OOO

Both Ginny and the hallway mirror had deemed the jade-green robes perfect for Hermione's evening at the opera. Ginny had persuaded her to take the afternoon off and go to a beauty spa, and when Hermione examined herself in the mirror one last time before leaving, she had to admit that she did indeed look her best.

Hermione had been ogled during her seventh year at Hogwarts by various boys, when her breasts had been subjected to a sudden growth spurt. Ron had seldom paid her compliments, and as their relationship had grown more distant and difficult, Hermione had scarcely ever felt that he saw her as a woman. When they argued, she was an enemy, and when they were at peace, she was a pal.

She was therefore quite unprepared for the look of unalloyed admiration she got from Malfoy when she crossed the threshold of his ancestral home. 'You look absolutely ravishing,' he said, raising his head from her hand. 'And the colour of your robes is perfect. We have enough time for a glass of champagne in the library before we leave...'

Hermione wasn't quite sure what she found more overwhelming: the sensation of her own body in those fantastic robes, Malfoy's obvious infatuation, or the thousands of books surrounding her. But she wanted to ask him a question, and so she pulled herself together. 'Mr Malfoy, I-

'Sorry to interrupt you, but do you think we might switch to first names?'

'Erm, yes, of course,' she said, her train of thought thoroughly derailed.

His hand barely touching the small of her back, he guided her to the leather armchairs facing the fireplace. 'You were saying?'

'I, uh...' She took a sip of champagne. 'I merely wanted to ask you how you'd managed to get the tickets for tonight.'

Lucius frowned. 'Well, I bought them. Or rather, I sent one of my Muggleborn employees to get them for me, since my acquaintance with such Muggle formalities may be sufficient to buy a newspaper or eat in a restaurant, but I didn't trust my skills enough to purchase our tickets. Is there anything wrong with them?'

'No! No of course not,' Hermione said hastily. 'It's just... well I wouldn't have thought that you... I had no idea you were so well-versed in Muggle affairs.'

'Being able to move in both worlds without making any too obvious mistakes is essential, I think. Would you like another glass?'

'No, thank you. One is quite enough on an empty stomach. I don't want to fall asleep during my favourite opera, after all.'

'Is it really your favourite?'

'Yes, of course. I wouldn't say it is if it wasn't.'

'Of course you wouldn't,' he said with an inscrutable smile. 'Would you, er, excuse me for a moment?'

OOO

I had started to rain on Sunday; a heavy, steady downpour made the leaves bounce up and down and flattened the grass.

Severus threw his sodden cloak to a waiting House Elf, climbed the stairs to the first floor, knocked on the door of Lucius's study and entered. 'Well,' he said, 'was last night's outing into Muggle culture worth postponing our dinner?'

Chuckling softly, Lucius deposited the letter he'd just finished writing on a stack of parchments with a flick of his wand. 'It certainly was,' he said. 'How are you?'

The two wizards shook hands and wandered out of the study and downstairs to the library.

'Tolerably well, thank you.'

'Do I detect a whiff off grumpiness?'

'You do.' Severus nodded his thanks at the proffered glass of firewhisky.

'I do hope you're not going to remain monosyllabic for the rest of the evening. What happened to put you in such a bad mood?'

'Draco happened,' the Potions master replied gruffly. 'Or rather, that Weasley brat did. Draco is becoming more and more absentminded. Needless to mention that I don't approve.'

'He's young,' Lucius said with a sweeping gesture that seemed to indicate general absolution for youthful misbehaviour. 'And he's obviously in love.'

'So are you. And you don't neglect your work.'

'I'm almost fifty, Severus, and I've been in love many times. One does tend to get carried away a little less with age. As you well know.'

'I didn't get carried away even when I was seventeen,' Severus muttered.

'Oh yes, you did. The fact that it wasn't love but potions recipes that made you forget to eat or sleep scarcely counts. But' – he leaned back and crossed his legs – 'maybe it is time for them to get married, you know. Once she's his wife, he won't feel the need to make sure she's his every fifteen minutes.'

'She'll be pregnant in no time, and he'll have a new pretext for fussing over her and neglecting his duties.'

'My, my. You really are in a black mood today, Severus. You're not feeling... left out, are you?'

'Left out? What on earth do you think you're hinting at?'

'Well, there's Draco, who seems to invest a considerable amount of time in his relationship with Miss Weasley, and I'm trying to lure the adorable Miss Granger into my bed... My dear if estranged son and I might soon be married men, whereas you'll continue your existence as a bachelor.'

'And that's supposed to bother me because? You and Draco are by no means the only friends I have!'

'Yes, but the only unmarried ones.'

'Kindly stop those ridiculous attempts at psychoanalysis, Lucius! I came here to enjoy the superb food and listen to endless tales about your seducing skills, not to be asked inane questions.'

Lucius smiled and inclined his head. 'I think it is time for dinner.'

'You're being surprisingly discreet about last night,' Severus said when they had taken their seats at the dinner table. 'Didn't things go according to your wishes?'

'Oh they did, they did.'

'Second date, wasn't it? Did you kiss her, as prescribed by the Eternal Rule?'

Lucius licked his lips. 'I did indeed kiss her.'

'Speaking of monosyllabic...' Severus said, looking askance at his friend.

'Indeed has two syllables, merely for exactitude's sake.' Lucius took his fork and knife and carefully cut into his pâté. 'Strange, isn't it, how words fail us sometimes? What can I tell you? That she was wearing robes which almost made me throw the Eternal Rule to the dogs? It was supremely embarrassing – I had to excuse myself... We were having a glass of champagne in the library and... What the fuck do Muggles do when they have an unwanted erection? I was wearing that blasted tuxedo – well, I'm _so_ glad that my embarrassment at least served to somewhat lighten your mood,' he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Still chuckling, Severus fished for a slice of toast. 'Did she notice?'

'No, I was standing behind her. And as I said, I left the room in rather unseemly haste. Fortunately I'd had the foresight to ask her into the library – it's like leaving a toddler at Honeydukes, you don't have to worry about them getting bored.'

'Excellent character analysis.' Severus nodded. 'By the way, how come you selected Figaro?'

'That,' Lucius said, 'was a brilliant inspiration, if I say so myself. You remember the early eighties, after Voldemort had vanished? Well, of course you do. Muggle culture was terribly en vogue back then-'

'Don't remind me! The number of Muggle magazines I had to confiscate those days... Especially from the girls – they went completely crazy over some Muggle princess.'

'Diana.' Lucius rolled his eyes. 'Can you imagine that Narcissa once tried to talk me into wearing a kilt? It's not _that_ funny, Severus.' He dabbed a bit of Sauce Cumberland on a bite of pâté. 'Anyway, you had to participate unless you wanted to be regarded as hopelessly passé, and since I'd always been very fond of music, going to the opera and concerts and fancy restaurants seemed like the best way to join the throng while keeping oneself apart from hoi polloi.' Regardless of his friend's smirk, he continued, 'Narcissa accompanied me a few times, but she never quite got the hang of classical music. Much as it pains me to admit it, she preferred Celestina Warbeck. Out of the three or four evenings we spent together at the opera, Mozart's Figaro was the one she found most boring.'

'That's what she told you,' Severus remarked. 'Now you mention it, I remember she sent me an owl to complain about your astounding tactlessness – the Count constantly chasing other women seemed to have hit a sore spot, you know. But she didn't care much for the music either.'

'I admit that may have been a tad tactless, indeed. But what I wanted to say was that with Hermione being so fundamentally different – in fact, if one witch can be said to be another's opposite, Hermione would be Narcissa's – I thought that she might like what Narcissa disliked. Et voilà, I was right.'

The two wizards finished their starters in contemplative silence.

'The 58 Bordeaux, I think,' Lucius said to the anxiously hovering House Elf when a delicious-looking roast lamb had appeared on the table. 'And if you give the bottle so much as a shake, it'll be clothes.'

'Miss Granger must be delighted by your newfound kindness towards your staff,' Severus said. 'By the way, the next date is your third – do you think she'll be ready for the night of all nights?'

'If she isn't, I certainly am' Lucius growled. His attention was momentarily distracted by the Elf returning to the dining room. It was holding a dusty bottle in each hand. 'Ah, the Bordeaux.' The elf was visibly relieved when he dismissed it with a wave of his hand. 'I thought,' Lucius said while busying himself with the wine, 'that I ought to invite her here, for brunch next Sunday. What do you think?'

'Not bad. Less suggestive of things to come than dinner, but still in close vicinity of the bedroom.'

'Exactly my thoughts. At the conservatory, in case the weather is bad, otherwise in the park. Which reminds me that I have to tell the kitchen staff to make more of the poached eggs with Sauce Hollandaise. She ate five of them last time, and only left me one.'

'A woman with a healthy appetite,' Severus said suggestively.

Lucius merely smiled and poured them some Bordeaux.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 4

'That's the third time you dipped your quill in the coffee cup,' Ginny remarked, when a rather impressive string of swearwords made her look up from her parchment. 'He really must be a good kisser. It's been two days, and you still can't concentrate properly.'

Having cleaned up the mess on her desk, Hermione shot her friend and colleague a deadly glare. 'Says the woman who showed up yesterday at work without underpants.' Ginny snorted. 'And had to pop back to Draco's place to retrieve them. And' – she Accioed a fresh sheet of parchment – 'came back two hours later. While I' – she resolutely put the inkwell and coffee cup as far apart from each other as possible – 'had to make up a credible excuse.'

'Which wasn't easy, since your brain had been turned to mush on Saturday night,' Ginny said amiably, eyes dancing with mirth.

'It was the music, I told you. The finale always makes me cry, no matter how hard I try to hold back.'

'And having your tears wiped off your blushing face and being very tenderly kissed – strictly without tongues of course – really didn't make you kiss him back, now did it?'

'It, erm...' Hermione raked her hand through her already wild hair. 'I did it mostly to spite the old bat sitting next to us. And to prevent Lucius from hexing her.'

'A purely sacrificial kiss, so to say. Given and received in the spirit of altruism as well as Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.'

Both witches burst out laughing.

'You're a horrible person, you know?' Hermione said, still giggling.

'Yes,' Ginny replied, stretching like a cat, 'That's what Draco says, too.'

OOO

Ginny had left the office at noon on Thursday to have lunch with Draco, and promised to get a sandwich for Hermione on her way back. Hermione remained sitting at her desk, brooding over her files and trying to put together her final speech for the next day's trial.

But the words just wouldn't come to her, and her mind seemed determined to stray back to Lazenby and the story he'd told her, and its possible ramifications. Her incipient affair with Lucius did nothing to make things easier for her.

'All right,' she muttered to herself when thirty minutes had gone by and the parchment was still staring back at her, as blank as it had been half an hour ago. 'You'll have to face it sooner or later, so you'd better face it now.' She put away the files. Since she didn't really care whether Mundungus Fletcher went to jail or not – this time he'd been caught red-handed with a load of illegally imported flying carpets – she was going to rely on her knowledge of both the defendant and his case the next day, and give an uninspired routine speech. She knew she could do it, and the case wasn't that important. What really counted now was to get a clear picture of the situation at hand.

She would have to talk to McGonagall. But before she sent a memo asking for an appointment, she'd do well to make a few notes.

After nibbling her quill for a few minutes, she started writing.

1) Lazenby's story true? à YES (Evidence: missing Malfoy file, Lucius Malfoy's reaction à would have denounced me if it was entirely untrue would he? He does seem to like me...

2) If story true, what are the possible consequences????

a) I agree to the deal à Lazenby gets more lenient verdict

IS HE GOING TO KEEP HIS SILENCE??? à Probably not, because he needs money (**betting habit!!**) à POSSIBLE BLACKMAIL (me? Lucius?)

b) I don't agree to the deal à L. gets 10 years in Azkaban à REVENGE??? Definitely YES

3) CONCLUSION: I've totally fucked up!!!! This is a lose – lose situation. Whatever I do, Lazenby will likely talk.

4) If information gets out:

a) Lucius likely to be in big trouble

b) The case will be out of my hands, so I won't be the one who tracks down Scrimgeour à VERY BAD

c) Backlash on Minerva + MoM à VERY BAD

5) Information must not get out!!! à OBLIVIATE Lazenby??? Continue inquiry on my own, without telling Minerva???

Hermione stared at the parchment, rubbing her temples. Experience had taught her that committing one illegal action almost inevitably led you towards committing another one, and then another and another, until you had dug yourself in so deep that you were unable to get out on your own. Obliviating Lazenby was... well, yes. It was illegal. She was quite sure she could live with it though. But what might it entail? She'd told Ginny. Ginny, who knew her well enough to be sure that Hermione wasn't just going to drop a story like that. But Obliviating Ginny was out of the question. So she had to think of another solution. A lie, close enough to the truth to be believable? Something along the lines of 'I tried to worm it out of Lucius, but he clamped shut like an oyster – I don't want to risk the relationship – But without confirmation from Lucius Lazenby's story just won't hold – I don't want to make a fool of myself in front of Minerva and the whole Wizengamot – So bugger Scrimgeour and his vanishing act – I'll just give it a rest for now – Who knows, something might come up later'? Was Ginny likely to buy it? Probably yes.

An illegal Obliviate, a white (well, grey) lie for Ginny, and omitting to inform McGonagall? Was that worth... well, what exactly? Hermione buried her head in her hands. That was the crucial question, wasn't it?

It was going to buy her as much time as she wanted or needed to pursue her very own aim of finding out more about Rufus Scrimgeour's disappearance.

It was going to protect whoever wouldn't exactly benefit from the story getting around – herself, Minerva, Lucius and maybe lots of others.

That result seemed to be well worth its price.

She must never, ever tell anybody.

Well, you might tell Lucius, her inner Slytherin said. That's exactly the kind of pillow talk he'd appreciate. Your very own pet Death Eater.

Hermione snorted. If she continued like this, she was going to become the next Dark Lord in no time. Straightening her shoulders, she incinerated the list she'd just written. After disposing of the ashes, she grabbed her wand more firmly and left the office, to pay a short but decisive visit to Gerald Lazenby.

OOO

'I definitely refuse to wear that!' Hermione exclaimed, pointing at the scrap of lace dangling from Ginny's finger.

Sitting cross-legged on Hermione's bed, still in her pyjamas and with her red hair tamed into a modest plait, Ginny shook the piece of lace at her friend. 'But it's dead sexy!'

'Maybe, but I find it mostly uncomfortable. I hate g-strings, they're itchy!'

'I'm sure Lucius will be delighted to scratch-'

'Ginny! Honestly!'

Ginny giggled and started playing with Crookshanks who attempted to catch the lacy thong. 'Okay, but you have to wear something sexy under those robes.'

Hermione eyed the clothes she'd chosen. The day promised to be quite hot – in a purely meteorological sense of course – and she'd decided on her favourite summer robes. They looked vaguely Indian, with a transparent, calf-length tunic to be worn over a sleeveless top and trousers. She particularly liked the shade of ivory, which had been unanimously approved by the fashion police, i.e. the owners of Frills & Fripperies and Ginny. 'What about this?' she asked, holding a matching set of French knickers and bra up for inspection. 'It's ivory as well, and satin to boot, you can't say it's not sexy.'

'That's okay,' Ginny said magnanimously. 'You know you've got tits to kill for, don't you?'

'Erm...' This kind of female companionship was new to Hermione, and she felt herself blush. 'Don't you think they're too big?'

'You're kidding, right? They're gorgeous! Just wait until Lucius sees them,' she added with a mischievous grin.

'I'm a bit nervous, to tell you the truth. It's been so long...'

'You and Ron didn't have a lot of sex, did you?'

'Not really, no. The last two years were...' She turned towards her friend. 'I'm feeling as if I'm seventeen all over again! And I hated being seventeen!'

'That's just nerves. You're almost twenty-four now, and you know what you want. I mean, you know your body better than you did at seventeen. And even though Lucius isn't your type-'

'Oh, shut up already!'Hermione said, laughing, and threw a pair of stockings at Ginny. 'You'll never let me hear the end of it, will you?'

'Well, you have to admit that your change of heart was a bit sudden. From whinging about having to go out with him, to being on total hormonal overdrive...'

'I can't quite explain it to myself. He's the first man who makes me feel like I'm a desirable, grown woman who is allowed to have sex with whomever she wants. I've never been kissed that way...'

'It's not as if you had that much experience,' Ginny said reasonably. 'Or was there ever anybody besides Victor and Ron?'

'Well, I... But you must promise not to tell a living soul!'

Ginny grinned. 'I promise. Honestly. Now tell me!'

'You remember the night before the battle?' Hermione stepped into her trousers. 'I was so sure I'd die the next day, and Remus was looking so lonely...' She slipped the top over her head.

'You shagged Lupin?'

'It started innocently enough, you know, just a hug – he'd accompanied me back to my room – and then it became a kiss, and then we were in my room, and... Well you can probably imagine,' she finished dryly.

'Lupin... Well, I'd never... How was he?'

'Hairy.' Buttoning up her tunic, Hermione raised an eyebrow at her friend. 'Don't tell me you want to know more!'

'I'd love to. But you've only got ten minutes – you don't want to be late, do you? We'll leave Lupin for later.' She scrambled off the bed and grabbed her wand. 'Sit down,' she commanded. 'I'm going to do your hair.'

OOO

A light breeze was playing with the bed curtains. The heat was already abating, as the sky began to lose colour just before dawn set in.

'I don't think I've ever sweated that much,' Hermione sighed.

Lucius lazily propped himself up on an elbow and licked a trickle of sweat from her breast. 'It brings' – he gently sucked her nipple – 'your already lovely scent to full bloom.' His hand nestled in the curve of her waist. 'Speaking of scent – my taste buds feel sorely neglected.' His fingers went down to her pubic curls. 'Would you consider allowing me...'

Hermione turned her head to give him an astonished look. 'You're offering? You're too good to be true, really.'

Her breast was treated to another round of suckling. 'You are mistaken, madam. I'm begging.'

'Oh.' She grinned and rolled over to lie on her stomach. 'If that's the case, I might keep you waiting a bit longer. Ouch!' she said when he bit her backside. 'That kind of behaviour will merely serve to prolong the wait. That's better.' Her bum arched into his caressing hand. 'Much better.' For a while, the silence was only broken by an occasional moan. 'Lucius,' she said, when she almost couldn't bear to wait any longer, 'when exactly did you plan to explain to me that I'm not currently discharging my life debt?'

If she'd expected him to look guilty, she'd have been sadly disappointed. 'You may be in need of... this' – his fingers crept between her thighs to stroke her there – 'but certainly not of enlightenment. Telling you would have insulted your intelligence, my dear. Or are you trying to make me believe,' he continued, nudging her to roll over, 'that you didn't read up on the matter as soon as you arrived at home?' His lips and tongue began to caress her belly.

'I did, as a matter of fact.' She spread her legs and shivered slightly at the rush of cool air on heated skin. 'Any ideas as to what you intend to ask of me, so I'll be able to acquit myself?'

With a brusque shake of his head, Lucius threw his hair over his right shoulder. 'Not yet,' he muttered, lifting her leg and supporting it with his left shoulder. 'And to tell you the truth, I'm as single-minded as most men. My attention is currently focussed' – he bent his head to nuzzle her pubic hair – 'on this lovely cunt, and I find myself quite unable to think of anything else.'

'Please,' she moaned. 'Please... don't bother. I'm sure the answer can... ohmygod... wait.'

If the answer didn't come, at least Hermione did – more often, she was sure, than she had in all her five years of cohabitation with her ex-boyfriend. No, she admitted to herself, that wasn't true. The sex had actually been nice once upon a time, and when their differences of opinion had begun to tear asunder the relationship, there had been a few rather spectacular episodes of grudge sex.

She was lying on her back, suddenly very awake. The room was dark. The windows were open, and the bed curtains half-closed, so she could see the stars littering the black night sky. Hermione smiled to herself and inhaled deeply. Lucius was dozing with his head resting on her lower belly. She extended her hand to gently stroke his shoulder and upper arm. He moaned, and her smile broadened. Her fingers repeated their caress, crept up to stroke his neck and tangle in the hair at his nape, touch his ear. He moaned again, then stirred. Those weren't moans of pleasure, she suddenly realized. They sounded anguished and full of dread. 'Lucius?' she said, squeezing his shoulder. 'Lucius?'

He was covered with a light blanket from the waist downwards, as was she, and in the faint starlight she saw the movement under the white satin - he was pulling his knees up, towards his abdomen, while the moaning continued.

'Accio wand,' she murmured, and was glad to feel her palm curl around the solid piece of wood. She intended to wake Lucius, but since she still vividly remembered waking Harry from a nightmare after he'd fallen asleep in the common room, and the subsequent blast of uncontrolled magic that had sent her head first into the wall, she carefully cast a shielding spell on herself before calling his name more loudly.

His lids fluttered open, to close again immediately. 'I'm not crazy,' he said, covering his eyes with his hands, 'I'm not crazy, please gods, I'm not crazy.'

Hermione had studied Legilimency with Snape – he'd offered to teach her when she'd started working at the ministry – and learned to perform it so subtly that her victims, for that would always be how she perceived them, didn't notice the invasion, provided she didn't stay too long. She had a rather clear idea of what was currently going on in Lucius's head but wanted to make sure. His eyes were again half open, and she gently slipped into his mind.

What she saw there in the second or so she maintained the contact, convinced her that Obliviating Lazenby had been the right thing to do. The cell that contained nothing but a cot, the bare walls and the low ceiling would have seemed harmless enough, had she seen it with her own eyes. But she saw and felt it through the eyes of a man who was teetering on the brink of madness. She felt his desperation, his fear, his abject loneliness. And she was sure that he'd rather die than go back there, even though Azkaban as it was these days bore almost no resemblance to the prison it had been back then.

Fighting back the wave of nausea that had gripped her, she made sure the shielding spell was still firmly in place. She extricated herself from under Lucius's head and stretched out alongside his body. He was still muttering, but seemed less panicked.

'Lucius,' she said again and kissed him, moulding herself against him to give him some of her warmth. 'Wake up!'

His eyes flew open. 'I apologize,' he said, his voice gritty with sleep, 'It seems that my manners have somewhat deteriorated. Falling asleep on one's lover is abominably bad ton. Although' – his grip tightened around her – 'there is the undeniable advantage of being torn from Morpheus' arms by a much more welcome embrace.'

'I have no idea what the time is,' Hermione said lightly, 'but I'll have to eat something. I'm starving.'

While Lucius lit his wand to glance at the clock, she quickly and discreetly removed the shielding spell. 'Only eleven,' he said. 'The perfect time for a little light supper, my dear.'

OOO

June was nearing its end. A wave of tropical heat that had lasted a full week had ended abruptly in a night of severe thunderstorms followed by a rainy morning. The sun had come out again in the afternoon, though, and when it slowly set behind the hills, the air was moist and balmy.

'I thought,' Lucius said, 'that we might dine out here on the terrace tonight.'

Severus nodded. 'Excellent idea.' He raised his head and sniffed the air. 'I'll have to try and create a perfume that smells exactly like the air does tonight. Maybe I ought to baptize it Ginevra – wouldn't Draco love that.'

A House Elf brought a tray with two glasses of Gin Tonic. 'Any news concerning the wedding?' Lucius asked nonchalantly.

Severus sighed. 'I'm sorry, Lucius. No. I tried to talk to him, but...' He moved his hand so that the ice cubes tinkled against the glass. 'You must do it yourself, Lucius. Write to him, if you don't want to talk to him right away. Write to him and explain – I'm sure he won't throw the letter away without reading it.' He looked over at his friend, who was staring at his drink in stony silence. 'Things have changed, Lucius. Draco is older now, he's happy, he's going to have a family. That might help him understand your motivations a lot better.'

'That's what Hermione says, too.'

Severus smiled thinly. 'If the fact that Miss Granger and I are of the same opinion isn't enough to convince you, I shall wash my hands of you. Think about it, at least.' He took a sip of his drink. 'How are things going with her of the bushy hair?'

Now Lucius looked at him and smiled. 'Exceedingly well. I think I'll propose tomorrow.'

'So soon?' Severus shook his head. 'Why? It's been how long? Five weeks?'

'Almost six since she came here the first time. I want the wedding to take place in August – I am very fond of her, as you know, but I mustn't forget about Lazenby.'

'Has she mentioned him again? Or Scrimgeour?'

'No. I have to admit that I'm finding her silence a little disconcerting. She's definitely not the kind of witch who'd desist at the first obstacle.'

'On the contrary. Obstacles seem to have a somewhat energizing effect on her.'

'Uh-huh. But I simply can't afford to mention it before the wedding.'

'Lack of trust in one's partner does not seem like a promising foundation for a marriage, Lucius.'

'I wasn't aware that Agony Aunt is among your many talents,' Lucius replied scathingly.

'Entirely your loss, my friend. I'm an excellent Agony Aunt, it's one of the best ways to ensure a steady procession of women through one's bed.'

'So it seems rather wasted on my good self,' Lucius shot back. 'But seriously, this isn't about lack of trust. Will you kindly stop smirking in that annoyingly supercilious manner? I do trust her, but what I'm going to ask of her goes against her deepest convictions – she might reject me and run screaming to McGonagall. And what am I to do then?'

'And what exactly, dear Lucius, are you planning to do if you tell her during your wedding night and she refuses? She can't go to McGonagall, but the marriage will be in ruins before it even started properly.'

The candles on and surrounding the dinner table suddenly flared to life, bathing the terrace in their yellow shine. 'Let's eat,' Lucius said, 'maybe the cold consommé will bring inspiration.'

They sat down and unfolded their napkins. 'Do you think,' Severus asked, 'that she'd denounce you, even if she did reject you?'

'I'd like to think she wouldn't.' Lucius dipped his spoon into the consommé. 'But this is too important, Severus, I just can't take the risk. The mere thought of having to go back...' He shuddered.

Severus put a hand on his forearm. 'Nonsense. If you make her see the consequences such an action may have, she won't do it.'

'I don't want to appear weak.'

'Your bloody vanity is going to be your death. Tell her you're mortally afraid of going back to Azkaban, and she'll be putty in your hands. Witches like wizards who are able to show a bit of weakness from time to time. Works like a charm, believe me.'

Lucius cast him a doubtful look. 'If you say so. But I'm going to propose before I tell her. That's a compromise, isn't it?'

Severus snorted and continued eating his consommé.

OOO

'Sorry, sorry, sorry!' Hermione covered her eyes with her hands. 'I'm sorry, Ginny, Draco, sorry, I didn't mean to-'

'Come in already, Granger,' Draco said. 'We were just sleeping, you didn't interrupt anything.'

Slowly removing her hands from her eyes, Hermione chanced another look at the occupants of the bed.' I really didn't mean to intrude...'

'You've made that abundantly clear, I think,' Draco said. 'Accio pyjama top. Accio Ginny's nightie. All right, Granger, we're decent. Come in and sit down.'

Yawning hugely, Ginny slipped her nightgown over her head. 'You're looking a bit dishevelled, Hermione. Are you all right?'

'Yes.' Hermione sat down on the foot of the bed. 'Yes, I suppose I am.' She surreptitiously eyed Draco. He was of a slimmer build than his father – probably something he'd inherited from Narcissa – and the grey of his eyes was less icy. Otherwise the resemblance had become even more striking, as Draco had grown older.

'What happened?' Ginny asked, sounding worried. 'Did you quarrel?'

'No,' Hermione said faintly. 'No, we didn't quarrel...'

'He didn't show you his collection of medieval erotica?' Draco inquired. 'They really aren't made for the weak-stomached.'

Hermione laughed in spite of herself. 'No, no erotica, whether medieval or other. He...' She swallowed. This was something she would've preferred to discuss with Ginny, without added male presence. But she had to tell somebody. She knew she had to, because otherwise she was going to burst. 'He proposed!'

'He didn't!' Ginny was up on her knees in a flash and grabbed Hermione's left hand. 'Is that the – well of course it's he ring he gave you. So that means you accepted?'

Before Hermione could give the rather obvious answer to Ginny's question, her hand was grabbed by Draco, who gave a low whistle when he saw the heavy gold ring of clearly Byzantine style bearing a beautiful sapphire. Sitting down on his haunches, he said, 'He really must have changed if the ring accepted you.'

Both women looked at him questioningly.

'It's an old family heirloom, almost as old as the family itself,' Draco explained. 'Erm, couldn't we maybe adjourn to the living room? I'd really fancy a cup of tea, and we could sit a bit more comfortably.'

Hermione went to prepare the tea, and when she came back to the living room, Draco and Ginny were already ensconced on the couch, with Crookshanks purring contentedly in Ginny's lap. A wave of Hermione's wand sent two teacups in their direction. 'So,' she said, sitting in an armchair and pulling up her feet, 'what can you tell me about the ring?'

'Well, as I said, it's been in the family for about eight hundred years. You'd have to ask my father about the details of its history, but I know that some Malfoy ancestor put a spell on it: It will adjust to your size only if the man who gives it to you does so with the honest intent to marry you.'

'What if a woman gives it-' Hermione began but was interrupted.

'The ring is passed down the male line. And there is a male heir in every generation of Malfoys. The spell I mentioned was put on the ring by a woman, however – probably to ensure that her son didn't go round the country seducing girls by promising to marry them.'

'Ah,' Ginny said, 'That's why you said he really must have changed – honest intent to marry a Muggleborn and all that.'

Draco merely nodded and lapsed into silence.

'So you did accept?' Ginny said, leaning closer to her friend. 'How did he propose?'

'Well uh...' Hermione indicated Draco with a nod in his direction.

'Oh, I see.' Ginny lifted Crookshanks from her lap and deposited him on her boyfriend's knees. 'Draco, we have some girl stuff to talk about in Hermione's room. I'm going to cast a privacy charm, and don't you dare try and eavesdrop, or I'll invite Auntie Muriel to the wedding!'

Draco winced and nodded, and the two women left for Hermione's bedroom.

'Now tell me,' Ginny said after she'd cast a privacy charm and sat down on the floor next to Hermione.

'You know the family owns a house down on the Cornish coast? Well, he suggested that we spend the day there – I've never been to that part of Cornwall, it's lovely, and we went for a long walk on the beach, and the weather was warm enough to swim a bit... Then we Apparated back to the house and, well...

'Shagged like crazy,' Ginny put in cheerfully. 'You seem to be doing quite a lot of that.'

'We've both got a lot to catch up on,' Hermione said. 'And it's – Bloody hell, Ginny, it's such a clichéd phrase, but I just never thought sex could be that good.'

'Well, that's a good thing, since you're going to marry him.'

'Yes. Yes, that's true. Anyway, we were still in bed when he asked me to marry him. First I thought I'd misunderstood him, and then, before I said yes, we did of course have to discuss lots of questions, like, was he going to be a pure-blooded git and ask me to stop working, and the terms of a possible divorce, and children – the lot.'

Ginny laughed. 'Serves him right for wanting to marry a lawyer.'

'He said something very similar. And now, after Draco told me about the ring, I understand what he meant when he said the ring would show me he was serious. He also told me that, unless one of us changed his or her mind, the ring won't come off until the actual wedding.' She tentatively tugged at the jewel; it refused to budge and remained where it was.

'You wouldn't have said yes unless you meant it,' Ginny said.

'No, although I thought it was something of a rash decision. I mean, we've known each other for six weeks... Then again, I'm sure we know each other well enough, none of us is under any illusions as to the other's character – so why wait?'

There was a brief silence. Then Ginny said slowly, 'You know, Hermione, I really don't mean to spoil anything... But the fact that he honestly intends to marry you doesn't say anything about his motives. You went to him because of the story that Lazenby guy had told you... Are you quite sure about Lucius's motives?'

Hermione sighed. She'd been dreading this, or a similar, question for quite some time now. 'We're friends, aren't we, Ginny?'

'I know, and I'm sorry, but-'

'No, that's not what I meant. What I mean is, you won't betray my confidence.'

'Of course not.' Ginny put her arm around Hermione's shoulder. 'Do you need help?'

'No. I merely want to tell you that... I've taken care of the Lazenby case. That's all I can tell you, and I want you to promise, as my friend, that you won't talk to anybody about it, and that you won't ask me any more questions. Will... can you do that?'

'I...' Ginny tugged at the end of her plait. 'Hermione, you're the cleverest and most sensible woman I know. But you're not infallible. I'll promise on one condition: If you ever feel you need help in this matter, you must come to me.'

'That's very...' Hermione swallowed. 'That's very generous, Ginny. Condition accepted. Promise?'

'Promise,' Ginny said solemnly.

'Regarding Lucius's motives,' Hermione said when they'd both recovered from the onslaught of emotion, 'You know Snape taught me Legilimency – well I thought I'd have a peek, I know it's an awful thing to do-'

'Not with Lucius,' Ginny interrupted her. 'And not if you had the slightest reason to doubt his motives. I suppose what you saw convinced you?'

'I know that he also has an ulterior motive. But he's totally infatuated, and he really cares for me. And even though there is an ulterior motive, there certainly is no intent to harm me in any way. I'd have felt that immediately.'

'Infatuated, eh?' Ginny said, nudging her.

'Erm, yes. Quite.' Hermione nudged her back. 'You're being terribly indiscreet.'

'Can't get enough of you,' Ginny said dreamily.

'Nor I of him,' Hermione said.

OOO

When the two women returned to the living room, half-expecting to find Draco asleep on the couch, they did indeed find him on the couch, but he was by no means sleeping. Crookshanks had retired under Hermione's desk, tail erect and bushy and hackles raised, and Draco was trying to get rid of an enormous eagle owl that seemed very determined to deliver a roll of parchment to him. It was perching on the back of the couch and pulling at Draco's hair with its beak.

Hermione rolled her eyes and went over to put an end to the struggle. She showed the bird the ring on her finger, and it instantly let go of a blond lock that was already looking slightly worse for wear, or rather tear. 'You can give it to me,' she said calmly, cautiously stroking the ruffled feathers, 'I promise I'll give it to him.'

She went over to her desk, gave Crookshanks' head a brief scratch and quickly wrote a short note for Lucius. 'There you go,' she told the owl after she'd untied and retied the ribbon on its leg. 'You can leave now, unless you fancy a little snack.'

The owl merely shook its feathers and clicked its beak, then took off and soared out into the summer night.

'Right,' Hermione said, turning back to Draco. 'Here, take it.'

'If I'd wanted to take the bloody thing, I'd have taken it right from the owl,' he muttered without looking up at her.

'That's true, but the owl couldn't do anything but pull your hair. I on the other hand can hex you, and I promise I will, if you don't take this letter.'

His head shot up. 'You have no right-'

Hermione thrust out her hand bearing the ring, and held it close to his nose. She could have sworn she heard Ginny snort when Draco flinched back. 'I think I do. I'm going to be your father's wife. I'm very fond of him. And I want you to take this letter and read it. It's the least you can do.'

'The least I – you really got some nerve, Granger. We're talking about the man who as good as killed my mother!'

'Voldemort did that,' Hermione said quietly. 'Look, Draco, I know what kind of man your father is. Just because I'm going to marry him, I certainly don't idealize him. But I'm sure he would have protected you and your mother, had he been able to. Why are you putting all the blame on him? Why not blame your aunt Bellatrix? She could have protected you, if she wanted.'

'At least Aunt Bella taught me Occlumency, whereas my father-'

'And a fat lot of good that did you! Your dear Aunt Bella's influence almost cost you your friendship with Snape! Why are you defending her and blaming your father? I don't understand, but maybe you'd care to explain!'

Draco merely shrugged and buried his face in his hands. Ginny briefly touched Hermione's shoulder, put a finger to her lips and tiptoed into her bedroom, closing the door noiselessly. Probably it was better this way, Hermione thought, because this was an argument the couple had certainly had many times already, and cornering Draco between the two of them was going to do more harm than good.

With a sigh, she sat down on the couch next to Draco. 'Maybe,' she began slowly, 'maybe you'll think what I'm going to say is typically Gryffindor – no subtlety, you know, blunt as a Bludger. But I can't quite get rid of the feeling that you're blaming Lucius, because Voldemort is dead, and your aunt Bella is dead, and there's no one else left to blame but yourself and your father. If you had a slightly, well, less developed ego, I suppose you'd blame yourself.'

Slowly raising his head, Draco gave her the ghost of a smile. 'You think I don't blame myself, Granger? Well, let me tell you that I do, every day. If I hadn't failed-'

'But don't you see that your reasoning is faulty?' Hermione interrupted him heatedly. 'I don't doubt or question your feelings, and I know you can't simply rationalize them away, but why should you condemn yourself when there's no reason to do so? You were sixteen years old, and you'd been brought up to believe in a certain ideology – and if there's anything you ought to hold your father responsible for, that's it. He brought you up to be an arrogant little shit who thought he could get away with anything, because his dad merely had to snip his fingers, and the consequences of whatever you'd said or done would just go away. And they did, for so many years. And when you were old enough to start thinking on your own – bang! Lucius went to Azkaban, and Voldemort told you to kill Dumbledore.'

'I was fucking proud of it,' Draco muttered. 'My father had fucked up royally and now it was my turn to prove that the Malfoys weren't a degenerated bunch of inbred halfwits. I hated mother's constant attempts at protecting me. I wrote her letters...'

'And you never told her you were sorry. That's bad. But it doesn't make you guilty, you know?'

Draco sighed. 'You're hell bent on making me read that bloody letter.'

'Well, yes. I'd like you to. I don't know what's in it, Lucius must have written it after I left.'

'You must be _such_ a good influence on him, Granger,' Draco said snidely. But his face was relaxed now, and his eyes looked less haunted.

'Of course I am. I'm a Gryffindor with a mission, you know. My short-term plan is to make him free all his House Elves and force him to learn how to perform household spells, and in the long term I'd thought I might convince him to establish a kindergarten on the Malfoy grounds for little Muggleborn witches and wizards, where he'll read them fairy stories, wearing pink robes embroidered with tiny little unicorns.'

OOO

Another traditional Saturday dinner – to take place at Severus's home this time – was rescheduled, because Severus had to go to Germany on Friday, in order to meet with representatives of the Ministry of Magic in Berlin where he hoped to settle a few questions concerning the authorization for the sale of his products in Germany. Since Lucius and Hermione were to spend the weekend in Glyndebourne, this was a lucky coincidence, and so they had agreed to meet on Wednesday. Thursday had been ruled out, as Severus's portkey was to be activated at six a.m. on Friday – he'd booked it rather late, and therefore hadn't been able to arrange transportation at a later and more convenient hour.

The restored farmhouse he inhabited was originally Muggle. To non-magical passers-by it still looked like a decrepit old ruin surrounded by a tangle of bushes, shrubs and gnarled old apple trees, the sight of which inevitably made them worry if everything was all right at home. Since their cell phones didn't work anywhere near the place, they felt the irresistible urge to go back where they'd come from on the narrow field path that seemed to end somewhere between the brambles that enclosed the derelict building.

To visitors such as Lucius, the place appeared as it really was: a lovingly restored, squat but large building surrounded by a well-kept orchard. There weren't any flower beds, but patches of magical plants and herbs were growing here and there under the trees.

When Lucius let the brass knocker fall against the heavy wooden door, a vivid, silvery trill floated out of one of the windows. Lucius wasn't in an especially friendly mood, but felt compelled to smile nonetheless. 'That dratted phoenix,' he said to Severus who'd come to open the door, 'He can't be satisfied with making you all wise and well-behaved, no, he has to make me grin like a fool when I really don't feel like smiling. Just look at me!' He eyed himself critically in the mirror.

'Suits you, though,' the mirror said in an unmistakeably female voice.

'I wasn't talking to you!' Lucius snapped. 'So kindly shut up.'

Severus was watching the exchange with considerable amusement. 'She likes you, although I fail to understand why.'

'Because he's got such pretty, pretty hair,' the mirror trilled. 'Yours has improved, of course, but his is just gorgeous!'

Still snickering, Severus led the way to the living room where Fawkes the phoenix was sitting on a perch, busy grooming his feathers. When Lucius entered, the bird stopped his preening and took off from his perch, to circle the room once and land on Lucius's shoulder.

'Your mood must be worse than I thought,' Severus remarked, looking up briefly while he poured them two glasses of Ogden's. 'He doesn't usually do that.'

Fawkes had switched to grooming Lucius's hair. 'Oh, stop it,' he said, merely to have his ear affectionately nibbled by the phoenix. He took the proffered glass and sat down in one of the armchairs with a resigned sigh. 'I'm... more preoccupied than angry,' he told Severus, who had seated himself opposite him. 'And also quite clueless,' he added, taking a sip from his glass.

'Clueless as to what, precisely?'

'I wrote Draco a letter and he wrote back.'

'And would that be the reason for your being preoccupied, or clueless, or both?'

'For being clueless.' He took another sip. 'Was I that bad a father?'

'Is that what Draco said?'

'Not exactly, no. It's more a list of everything I've done wrong, than a letter.' He leaned back, and Fawkes rubbed his head against his throat. 'The problem is that the boy is right, well mostly right, and I have no idea how to react.'

'You could simply tell him.'

'Tell him what?'

'Tell him that he's right and you don't know what to do.'

'And how's that supposed to help?'

'I don't know. But you'd be beating the Bludger at him, and he'd have to decide whether to duck or beat it back at you.'

'Are you sure you're not channelling Dumbledore?'

'Absolutely sure. Dumbledore would have twinkled at you and told you the joke about the giant, the goblin and the warlock entering a bar in Jamaica. Not to mention the offer of Sherbet Lemons. Whereas I'm giving you Firewhisky and sound advice.'

'I blame this useless piece of scarlet fowl. In a few years, you'll have grown a beard and twinkle like mad.'

'That'll be the day I propose to Dolores Umbridge. Speaking of which – did you propose?'

'Oh, yes.'

'You don't sound giddy with joy. Did she refuse?'

'No of course not.' Lucius shook his head. 'No, she said yes, and the ring won't even allow you to turn it left or right, which is usually possible.'

'That's good news I'd say.'

Lucius sighed. 'Yes it is. Considering the intensity of her feelings as demonstrated by the ring, I decided to... I'm going to tell her this weekend. Unburden my conscience, make a clean slate, put my life into her hands... I can't think of another cliché I'm afraid.'

'You don't have a conscience, Lucius, as far as I know.'

'Well I seem to have sprouted one, which is rather annoying in itself, especially at my age. What is infinitely more annoying, is the fact that I can't get rid of the blasted thing.'

Severus spread his arms. 'The love of a good woman...'

'You're supposed to be my friend, not poke fun at me in my misery. Especially since the whole marriage idea was yours.'

'It was a suggestion, Lucius. You didn't have to follow through with it.'

'I ought to have Obliviated her while I still could do it,' Lucius said darkly. 'Now I'm too fond of her to even consider it, and I'll be totally at her mercy.'

'An entirely new experience, I'm sure,' Severus said blandly.

Lucius groaned and closed his eyes. 'Are you at least going to feed me, since you're not showing any inclination to make yourself otherwise useful?'


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 5

'No picnic, I'm afraid,' Lucius said when they emerged from the opera house into heavy rainfall and gusts of cold wind. 'Here, take my cloak, or you're going to catch your death.' He wrapped his cloak around her shoulders. 'You hadn't told me that Madame Butterfly makes you cry as well.'

Hermione sniffed. 'I'm being a bit emotional these days, obviously.'

'Obviously,' he said dryly and handed her a handkerchief. 'Shall we go back to the manor for dinner, then?'

'Yes, I'd like that,' Hermione said, shivering and pulling the cloak more closely around her. 'Brr. The temperature must have dropped by at least ten degrees.'

Ducking their heads against the rain, which the wind was whipping into their faces, they swiftly moved away from the crowd of Muggles and into the shades. 'The coast is clear, I think,' Lucius whispered after a careful look at their surroundings. 'On the count of three?'

The weather wasn't much better in Wiltshire, although the air was slightly less chilly. Hermione exhaled deeply when they'd finally entered the light and warmth of Malfoy Manor. 'A hot toddy, I think,' Lucius said. 'You're stone cold.'

'I'll just go and change into something dry.' She climbed the stairs to the first floor and entered Lucius's bedroom. The light summer robe she'd left there when she'd changed into something more formal didn't seem adequate to her needs, and she decided to simply transform it into an ankle-length cashmere dress. A spare bra was turned into a matching cardigan, and the silk of her stockings into wool. Already feeling much better, Hermione crossed the room to sit down at the dressing table and extricate the hairpins holding her coiffure.

Her eyes stared gravely back at her when she looked at herself in the mirror. The wedding date they'd agreed on was only five weeks away, and she'd decided to tell him well before they got married. Or maybe not, if he took it badly. Lucius certainly wasn't the kid of wizard who'd react well to the news that his fiancée had invaded his mind twice. She was pretty sure he'd be grateful for her Obliviating Lazenby and that he'd just love the present she was so impatient to give him, though unsure whether to start with the good or the bad news. The only thing she was absolutely certain about was the necessity to tell him right now. She'd been growing increasingly uneasy about her breach of confidence – how lucky, she thought dryly, that Madam Butterfly was the perfect justification for her crying fit. She would've had trouble explaining her tears otherwise.

She heard Lucius open and close the door to the adjacent dressing room. He had given her his cloak, so he had to be soaked to the skin and probably even colder than she was. There was something to be said in favour of old-fashioned chivalry, she thought. Maybe it was going to refrain him from hexing her after she'd confessed.

Hermione slipped her wand into the left sleeve of her dress and quietly exited the bedroom.

She was already half through her hot toddy when he joined her in the library. 'I think I'll have one too,' he said, motioning to the waiting House Elf.

They wandered over to the fireplace and sat next to each other on the sofa. Hermione inhaled the scent of leather and paper that mingled with a faint note of wood smoke from the crackling fire. Usually that smell appeased her, but tonight she was feeling a little too anxious for it to work. When they both had their drinks, she scooted closer to him, greedy for warmth and physical contact. They remained silent, both staring into he flames. Then, both started talking at the same time.

'Hermione, there is something-'

'Lucius, I have to tell you-'

'You go first,' they said in perfect synchronicity.

Another moment of silence. Lucius sat up a little straighter and dug in his pocket. 'Shall we throw a coin?'

'And let fate decide? Why not. I'll take head.'

'I'd rather you give head,' Lucius smirked, to be promptly elbowed in the ribs. 'Sorry, my dear. Bad but irresistible.'

'Like you,' she muttered.

He threw the coin, and they both bent forward to watch it spin around itself. When it finally stilled, showing them the side embossed with Merlin's head, Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Just my luck.' She grabbed the piece of metal and turned it. 'Erm...' She handed it back to Lucius with a grin. 'I just wanted to make sure there aren't two heads.'

'Thank you for your trust,' he said surly, pocketing it. But then he smiled and slid his arm back around her shoulder. 'So?'

Her heart beating wildly, Hermione took a deep breath. 'What do you want to hear first? Good or bad news?'

'Good,' he replied. 'They'll hopefully be fortifying enough for me to bear the bad ones with manly dignity.'

'All right. I...' She realized hat she had forgotten to exhale and was close to hyperventilating. 'I Obliviated Lazenby.'

She'd expected Lucius to thank her, but been thoroughly unprepared to see him laugh. 'I'm sorry,' he said, wiping tears of mirth from the corner of his eye and pressing a kiss on her temple, 'but this is... Go on, tell me the bad news. I think I can take them.'

'You'll have to work a bit on your manly dignity though,' she said scathingly. 'And I do hope you have a very good explanation for laughing. Anyway, the bad news is that I performed Legilimency on you, twice.'

'Well that's obvious, since you-' He stopped in mid-sentence when he saw her surprise. 'You mean you didn't Obliviate him because-'

'No. That's not what I saw, although now I understand why I saw that you had an ulterior motive for proposing. You wanted to ask me to Obliviate him once we were married, didn't you?'

Lucius cringed. She saw it with deep satisfaction. 'N-not exactly. But that was part of the confession I meant to make. Wouldn't you like to finish yours before I start?'

'I don't think so,' she said, eyes narrowing. 'Out with it, Lucius. What do you have to say?'

Closing his eyes, he tentatively drew her closer, and when she didn't resist, pulled her over to rest against him. Her left hand was resting limply on her thigh and he took it. The ring still refused to move. 'I suppose,' he began slowly, 'that during your, er, excursions into my mind you were able to see that my affection for you is genuine?' He felt her nod against his shoulder. 'Well, that should make this a little easier. Firstly I would like to confirm your initial suspicion. Scrimgeour did indeed pay me a visit at Azkaban, and he offered me a deal: Three hundred thousand galleons for my freedom, the destruction of all the files concerning me, and the possibility to participate in the battle against He Who- Voldemort.'

Hermione chuckled. 'You see? I was right.'

'Yes, you were, and you can probably imagine how unwelcome your questions were. I would not have hesitated to take more, well, drastic actions, had I not succumbed to your considerable charm.'

'You mean you would have...' Hermione swallowed. 'Killed me?'

'Killed you? No. I had to assume that somebody knew you'd pay me a visit, so that would have been out of the question.'

'You're being so refreshingly ethical these days,' Hermione said, sounding rather exasperated.

'If you had lived through two years of imprisonment at Azkaban, ethics would be your least concern if faced with the possibility of returning there, my dear.'

'I know,' she said into his shoulder. 'I saw it.'

He stiffened. 'I can't say I like the idea of your having witnessed-'

'Remember the first time we made love?'

'That's hardly something I'd forget.'

'Remember that you fell asleep afterwards?'

He sighed and relaxed marginally. 'I still dream about... it.'

'I had already Obliviated Lazenby a few days before that, just so you know I didn't do it out of pity or whatever you think may have motivated me. I saw that you were having a very bad dream, and I guessed what it might be, and so... It was merely a confirmation that I'd been right in eliminating the possibility of you having to go back to Azkaban. But back to your story. So you would have liked to put me under Imperius, but where prevented from doing so by my considerable charms.'

'I tried to find a way to combine the useful with the pleasant.'

'You thought you'd be able to shut me up by marrying me? Maybe you don't know me all that well.'

He briefly buried his nose in her hair before continuing to speak. 'I didn't think for a second that I'd ever be able to shut you up. No, I intended to make you pay your debt by Obliviating Lazenby, and to choose a marriage vow that would effectively thwart any desire you might have to denounce me to the authorities. There, that's it.' His hand squeezed her shoulder. 'Why do people keep telling one that one will feel better after confessing?. I'm feeling a lot worse now.'

'You need to wait for absolution in order to feel better, I suppose.'

'Ah. That explains it. Am I to be granted absolution?'

'If I hadn't had that look into your mind' – she was holding the ring on her finger pinched between her thumb and index– 'this ring would probably come off now, and I'd throw it into your face. What on earth were you thinking?' She pulled up her feet to kneel next to him. 'Did you honestly believe I'd stay with you for another second if you tried to coerce me into Obliviating him?'

'No, that's why I planned to tell you everything tonight. Ask Severus if you don't believe me!'

Hermione sat back on her haunches. 'Snape was in on this?'

'Well, I-'

'You were plotting my total and utter humiliation together with Severus Snape?'

'Hermione, please-'

She tried to wrench the ring off her finger, but in vain. The ring stayed where it was, refusing to be taken off. Hermione slowly rose from the couch and took a few steps back. 'What have you done with this ring?'

Lucius frowned. 'I haven't-'

'You ought to know better than to further infuriate me,' she spat. 'Tell me this instant, what spell or curse or whatever have you put on this ring? I hate you so much, and I certainly don't want to marry you, so why doesn't it fucking come off? You said it would, if one of us had doubts. And since this fucking wedding is definitely not going to happen, and I'm so fucking angry I could kill you on the spot, and the fucking ring is still on my finger, there's only one explanation: either you tampered with it, or you lied to me when you said it comes off if one of us had doubts!'

'That's two,' Lucius said.

'I beg your pardon?'

'That's two explanations. Having tampered with it or having lied to you. Although there is of course a third explanation, which you understandably failed to mention: you don't have doubts.'

'Of course I don't have doubts! "Doubts" doesn't even begin to express what I'm feeling right now! I'm not in doubt, I'm absolutely dead certain that I don't want to become your wife, because I'd be able to forgive you that nasty plot, but plotting with Snape, against me, that's definitely too much!'

'He's my best friend!'

'Well so what? Ginny's my friend, and I didn't...well maybe I did,' she said, a little calmer. 'But never that! Never to humiliate you.'

'I didn't talk to Severus to humiliate you! I confided in him because he's the only one who knows, and I was in dire need of advice! Is that so difficult to understand?'

Hermione sighed. 'I can understand it, on a purely rational level. I might even have done the same in your place. It just feels wrong – you two pulling the strings, and I'm the puppet.'

'Is that how I'm making you feel?' Lucius said tonelessly. 'A puppet on a string? That was certainly not what I intended. If that was what I wanted, I would have put you under Imperius, and saved myself a lot of trouble.'

'And I'm supposed to be grateful now, or what?'

Lucius gave her a thin-lipped smile. 'Not grateful, my dear. But certainly relieved.'

'Well, I am. But it doesn't really make me feel better. Besides I'm hungry, and I think I've caught cold. And I'm still hurt.'

He was on his feet and standing close to her in an instant. 'Would you like me to kiss it better?'

'Stop that, Lucius,' she said, somewhere between laughing and crying. 'Charming though you doubtlessly are, that's not enough for you to get back into my good graces.'

'I'd be quite happy with getting back into your knickers, for a start.' His arms sneaked around her waist.

'Sex isn't going to put things right!'

'Are you quite sure? Seeing as the ring still seems to think we want to get married...'

'And I said I'm hungry!'

'We could have supper in bed. And I can think of so many creative uses for certain items of food.'

'And I feel a cold coming on.'

'As do I. But doesn't the vision of taking PepperUp together, and then having sex with smoke coming out of our ears hold a certain appeal?'

Still encircled by his arms, she turned to face him. 'Sex as a panacea?'

'Not necessarily,' he replied, caressing her bum. 'But I was hoping it might remind you that getting married to me does have its perks, you know?'

'What about Scrimgeour?' she said, looking up and into his eyes. 'I suppose you want me to leave him be?'

'Think of it as your dowry. But,' he said, catching her hands when he saw the anger return to her eyes, 'maybe you'll be more willing to desist if I tell you that I've tried to track the old bastard down since the day I left Azkaban. To no avail.'

Hermione grinned. 'And that's supposed to stop me? The mere idea of succeeding where you failed makes me go all warm and fuzzy.'

'Try getting pregnant,' was his deadpan reply.

'Not very challenging, if Molly Weasley could do it seven times.'

'All right,' he said with a sigh, 'If you want to attempt to find him, I won't keep you from doing so.'

'Is that a promise?'

'Yes. Yes, it is a promise and I declare myself honour-bound to keep it.'

Hermione reached back to take his hands. 'Before we go upstairs to have sex, supper and PepperUp,' she said, pulling him towards the couch, 'I think I'd like to give you a little present.'

'That would be my cue to say something romantic along the lines of "You have already given me your heart, my darling, what else can I wish for", wouldn't it?'

'Coming from you, that would have a certain entertainment value.' Hermione pulled a thin gold chain from under the neckline of her dress. 'Alohomora,' she said, touching the clasp with her wand. The chain slid off her neck and pooled in her palm. 'And now, Restoreo!' A minuscule golden object Lucius hadn't seen because of its tininess grew back to its original size.

Lucius raised his brows. 'A Time Turner? Do you want me to go back and be a good boy?'

'Nonsense.' Her curls bobbed when she shook her head. 'Tell me, Lucius, how did you give the money to Scrimgeour?'

'I signed a magical contract, why?'

'Do you maybe remember if there was anything funny about the document you signed?'

'Funny in which way?'

'I don't want to influence you. Just try to remember.'

He sighed. 'I'm afraid I can't help you with this, Hermione.'

'Never mind. Just answer my questions. Do you remember signing the document?'

'Funny you should ask. No, I remember him telling me that I had to sign, I even remember having difficulties holding the quill, but... The bastard Obliviated me!'

'He had to. Because if you'd remembered the date on that document, it would have given you a clue as to his whereabouts. Or rather whenabouts. You know,' she said, closing his mouth with a gentle finger, 'I'm very fond of logical explanations. I just couldn't believe that locating Scrimgeour was impossible. Not for such a long time, and certainly not with Law Enforcement all over the globe looking for him. Sooner or later, if somebody isn't dead, he's bound to leave a trace. If he hadn't vanished in space, he had to have vanished in time. That's logical isn't it?' Lucius merely nodded. 'I only thought of that explanation a few days ago. So I went to have a look at the ministry's inventory. Very practical things, inventories, especially since this is as good as brand new. All the ministry's Time Turners were destroyed when we fought for the prophecy, so they had to begin a new one in 1996. All the Time Turners produced and acquired since then were accounted for. So I cast revealing spells on them, one by one. And' – she lifted her palm making the device sparkle in the candlelight – 'only one of them had been used twice. Used to go back to 4 September 1927, which happens to be the day Scrimgeour was born. Quite the sentimental thing to do, don't you think? The first time round, he opened an account at Gringott's – I can't prove it of course, but I'm absolutely sure he did. Then he came back and made you sign the contract. He had to Obliviate you because you'd probably noticed the date was wrong. And then he went back again, this time to stay. He had to leave the Time Turner at the ministry, of course, or else somebody might have noticed it was missing. Well, that's it. And this' – she held out her hand – 'is yours. Maybe you'd like to keep it as a souvenir. I've left a very good replica at the ministry.'

Lucius slowly shook his head. 'You,' he said hoarsely, 'are the single most amazing witch I've ever met. May the gods strike me down here and now if ever I dare to do so much as look at another woman.' He took the Time Turner. 'Amazing,' he repeated. 'You've outsmarted them all, my dear. Are you sure you don't have any plans for world domination or becoming the next Dark Lord?'

'Not right now. I'd rather take you up on your offer of sex.'

'And PepperUp?'

She sneezed. 'Definitely.'

'Supper?'

'Certainly.'

'And you still won't marry me?'

Hermione tugged at the ring. 'I'm afraid I'll have to.'

'Do you want to?'

She smiled at him. 'I think I do. And just in case I should warm to the idea of Dark Lording, let's get married by that obscure ritual you told me about. How's it called?'

'The Canterbury Handfasting,' Lucius said and kissed the ring on her hand.

FINIS


End file.
